


The Speed Of The World Without You In It

by hashtagartistlife



Category: Bleach
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2018-05-07 18:27:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 32,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5466680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hashtagartistlife/pseuds/hashtagartistlife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Bleach oneshots, drabbles and tumblr prompts. Predominantly Ichiruki.</p><p>Updated: It’s the little things about her that throws him sometimes. Her inability to use juice boxes. Her complete disregard for his carefully constructed image. Her utter obliviousness to routine human world customs.</p><p>(It’s the little things that make him fall in love.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Going to War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are soldiers, conscripted to fight. The war wasn’t going to win itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt + pairing meme. The prompt was ‘going to war au’.

They had never trained with the intention to kill before.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true – the _killing intent_ is something that is drilled into every little shinigami, so that by the time they graduate they will be well-oiled hollow killing machines. Rukia is familiar with the weight of it on her shoulders, the way it rests, gentle and yet so draining, on the edge of her sword.

But _Ichigo_ –

One of the Zangetsus cuts an arc before her, and Rukia raises Shirayuki to parry. The _clang_ as they bounce off each other reverberates in the oppressively heavy reiatsu-rich air of the Zero Division, sounding not like metal on metal but more reminiscent of tinkling glass, of breaking ice. Their eyes meet over the blades of their swords, one pitch black, the other stark white.

“This… is different,” Ichigo says, echoing her thoughts, and Rukia agrees silently. This was different. They had trained before, yes, together and apart, with other people and with each other, but never before had they had a _purpose_. Not like this. Ichigo’s training so far had been either _reactive_ , in response to a disaster that he had to shape up to meet, or to regain lost powers. Hers, while closer to the kind of training they were undertaking right now, had still been _vague_ ; it focused on preparing her for one-on-one match-ups, just her against a single hollow that had to be defeated. It had never quite had the sense of impending doom and desperation that Ichibei’s training carried.

This time, they are going to _war_.

“Raise your swords, Ichigo,” Rukia says, and her voice is hoarse from disuse. Ichigo obliges, the fighting stance coming as easily to him as breathing now, and Rukia feels a brief flash of pain at the loss of the young boy, all gangling limbs and fierce eyes, who thought it would be a good idea to run full-tilt at a Menos and hack it till its head fell on the ground. A man stands before her now, grown into his frame; his eyes are quieter, more subdued, masking the flames that roar behind them. His swords are heavy with the blood of those he has fought – and _killed._ “I won’t go easy on you.”

A trace of a smile ghosts across his lips, and he shifts on his feet. “I could say the same to you,” he says, and then they’re both charging, him wild and ferocious, she restrained but with a savage kind of elegance in her moves, and the air around them sizzles as their blades meet again and again, each meeting denoted by a loud hiss and a burst of steam as his fiery reiatsu clashes with her ice-cold strength–

“Is that the best you can do, Ichigo? I’ve had better sparring matches with a cat!” Rukia calls out, even as she ducks under another swing of his blade. He is unused to fighting with two swords, and this makes him clumsy; a dangerous thing to be prior to battle. She stabs at his torso, and he barely parries in time.

“Of course you have, the only cat that you know is Yoruichi and I know better than to cross her,” he replies thickly, before launching a series of attacks with renewed vigor. Shirayuki’s white ribbon dances between them as Rukia meets every slash and jab of his blade.

And then– _there_. For a split second, his grip on Zangetsu - the left one, his nondominant hand unused to the weight of a blade - slips, and Shirayuki _twists_ just so and the blade is flying out of his hand. Rukia takes advantage of the momentary loss of composure as only a seasoned soldier can; in moments she has disarmed him completely and the edge of her sword rests against his jugular. She has stepped in close for this manoeuvre, close enough to feel the heat of his body along the entire line of hers. Close enough that should he wrap his arms around her and she discard her blade, it would be a lover’s embrace.

She shakes off the thought; discomfited, she withdraws Shirayuki and walks away. Now was not the time for such thoughts; not when the entire world was on the brink of collapse and Ichigo was still being bested by _her s_ wordsmanship. Lieutenant though she was, she knew her swordplay still left much to be desired. “You would be dead had this been in earnest. You’re still not used to wielding two blades–”

“– who says I surrendered?” Ichigo says, and too late Rukia whips around to see his figure – just a black blur, really – tackle her to the ground, pinning her sword-arm above her head. An easy press on her tendon has her releasing her grip on Shirayuki with a cry of pain, and internally Rukia is cursing herself because she shouldn’t have taken her sword away from his neck without hearing ‘I surrender’ from his lips. But when it comes to rookie errors, Ichigo is making plenty of them himself. His expression shifts from ‘hardened warrior’ to ‘concerned seventeen-year-old’ in an instant, and Rukia braces her back against the ground and _surges–_

And now she’s on top of him, forearm pressing against his windpipe as her other hand scrabbles desperately for her sword because she _knows_ this position is untenable, and any moment his larger strength was going to overwhelm her–

Her hand closes around a hilt and Rukia springs away from Ichigo’s body, but the texture against her palms is all wrong, nothing like Shirayuki’s ornate handle. Something that feels like a tongue of flame pulls down her spine as she looks at her hands to see them wrapped around _Zangetsu_.

“Rukia–” his voice sounds choked for some reason, but Rukia does not analyse, does not have time to analyse. She lifts Zangetsu (feather-light in her hands; should he not weigh more than Shirayuki?) and cuts it in an arc before her. Ichigo jumps back; throws her an incensed glare.

“Who says I surrendered?” she says, and his eyes narrow, dodging another sweep of her ( _his_ ) blade before diving and rolling to the side. Rukia chases; her shunpo had always been above his, but she is stopped by yet another pull down her spine (this time like scurrying frost) and when he straightens he holds Shirayuki in his hands.

“Thought we should make it even,” he says, and his voice is rough and Rukia nods because she does not trust herself to speak because it hits her, suddenly, that these are a piece of their _soul_ each that they are carrying, entrusting, fighting with–

There is no more time for thought. She raises Zangetsu with a speed born from instinct as Shirayuki comes slicing down at her, and she feels the impact of their collision somewhere in the vicinity of her heart. She wonders if she would be able to fire off a _Getsuga_ with this blade; wonders if Ichigo would be able to use any of her dances. Or would it be the reverse? She almost laughs out loud at the image of Ichigo’s rough-hewn blade being used for _Tsukishiro_ or _Hakuren_.

The image costs her; Ichigo uses her momentary distraction to slip Shirayuki under Zangetsu and _lift_. She barely holds on by her fingertips, but she recovers well and spins out of his reach. She hurls kido at him, but it’s easy for him to dodge and soon she’s back within Shirayuki’s range, the two swords clashing and springing apart and clashing again.

And then she _trips_. She steps on the hem of her shihakushou, and she’s teetering backwards, and even in the Royal Realm gravity is unavoidable. She’s falling, and Ichigo is sensing victory, closing in, but like _hell_ she’s going to lose to someone who has less than five years of battle experience and Zangetsu is whipping up faster than you could believe–

They stop, and it seems like the whole world stops with them. There’s no-one else in the world but _them_ , him kneeling over her with Shirayuki poised over her heart and her lying flat on her back with Zangetsu at his neck. Their eyes are connected, and they’re breathing– _panting_ – in tandem, and for a moment there are no Quincies or Soul Kings or Royal Realms or _wars_ – just them, the two of them, holding each other’s lives ransom with a piece of the other’s soul.

“I surrender,” they breathe in unison, and Rukia lets Zangetsu fall beside her even as Ichigo collapses by her other side. She’s still breathing hard as she turns to face him, and she tells herself it’s because of the exertion. His amber irises are bright, and he’s breathing equally hard. Almost before she knows what she’s doing, she’s reaching her hand up to brush his hair from his face.

“You’re unused to fighting with two blades,” she says, and she tries to ignore how throaty her voice is, how her concern comes out as a low rasp. She can still feel ghostly flame tracing down her spine. She pushes it aside – whatever it was could wait. But her fingers are curling around strands of his hair, and she has a nagging suspicion that the two things are related. “That’s– not optimal.”

“It’ll get better,” he replies, and if her voice is husky, at least his is equally rough. “I’ll get better. I always do.”

“This is different,” she says, and she doesn’t know if she’s referring to _them_ or the war.

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” he says, and she doesn’t know which one _he_ ’s referring to either. “Wait, shit, what I mean is – I mean, of course the destruction of the world is bad, but–”

Just like that, the tension between them is broken; Rukia withdraws her hand to cover the laughter bubbling up from inside her. She laughs till her sides ache. “Oh, Ichigo, you really have a knack for putting your foot in your mouth during serious moments,” she says fondly. Next to her, Ichigo grumbles incomprehensibly.

The two of them lie in companionable silence for a while. The sky above them is blue, boundless; it makes Rukia wonder if there is yet _another_ realm up there, to fight or to save. With a start, she realises that with Ichigo by her side, neither the thought of more enemies or more responsibility fazes her. With Ichigo by her side, she is calm.

But there is a war looming on the horizon, and both of them are soldiers, conscripted to fight. Ichigo acts first; he grips Shirayuki ( _and, again, that shiver down her spine, like ice_ ) and offers it to her; his suggestion of ‘rematch?’ is more than a little mischievous. A smile tugs at Rukia’s lips; she takes Shirayuki and hands him Zangetsu. Despite his grinning countenance, he takes it from her uncertainly; the unsettling (not entirely unpleasant) feeling down both their backs ever since the other gripped their zanpakutous has not dissipated with the reinstation of their correct owners. Neither of them mention it, and the moment passes.

“You worry too much,” he murmurs, as he picks up his other blade. Despite the space they have put between them, Rukia hears his voice like he is standing just beside her. She feels it echo in the space between her bones.

“Says you,” she counters, because he worries more than anyone else she’s ever met, gladly carrying lives on his shoulders that should never have been his responsibility. He smiles at her ruefully.

“Can’t help it,” he says, before holding out his swords in a battle stance. Rukia takes up her position opposite him, Shirayuki raised high. She looks into his eyes, and there it is again – that jolt down her spine. Shirayuki vibrates in her hands.

But whatever this is, it will have to wait. Ichigo throws himself at her with a sharp cry, and Rukia responds in kind, raising her blade. There is no time to analyse, no time to think. The battle has begun, and _they are going to war_.

 


	2. Oscar Bait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing about the contract had seemed hard when they signed it. They were talented actors. They knew next to nothing about each other. They certainly DIDN’T hate each other, but it wouldn’t be hard for them to pretend. And they’d do anything to be in an Urahara movie.
> 
> The risk they took was calculated, but boy, were they bad at maths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt + pairing meme. The prompt was 'pretending to hate each other AU'.

 

 

They were going to lose their contracts.

Lose their contract, their control, their _minds_ – they were going to lose it all. Fuck it. Rukia didn’t care.

“We shouldn’t– we shouldn’t–” her mouth whispered, even as her fingers threaded through the soft fabric of his jumper and pulled him closer, closer. Ichigo growled softly in response.

“We _should,_ ” he muttered, before pulling her in for another searing kiss. Rukia felt the warmth of his lips down to her toes. She shuddered in his arms and leaned in closer, searching blindly, searching–

The clatter of a falling broom cut through the fog in their minds, and the two Oscar-award-winning actors jumped apart as if burned. Their eyes met in frantic, panicked communication.

“I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU NOT TO BOTHER ME ABOUT THIS!” Rukia suddenly screamed, shoving a sheaf of papers into Ichigo’s chest. “LEARN YOUR DAMN LINES BY YOURSELF FOR ALL I CARE, I WON’T BE BOGGED DOWN BY YOUR _INCOMPETENCE_ –”

“Did you go to acting class in a back alleyway of nowhere?!” Ichigo snarled back in response, not missing a beat. “Who the fuck cares if you’ve learned your lines by rote, if you sound like a damn fucking _robot_ reciting them–”

“I won’t have my credentials questioned by the likes of _you_ , oh mighty ‘model-turned actor!’” Rukia sneered, just as a hulking figure rounded the corner, broom in hand.

“….. bad time?” Yasutora Sado asked the two feuding figures, who had slumped together tiredly once they recognised their intruder.

“How are we going to DO this for another six months?” Rukia despaired.

Sado shrugged.

 

*

 

Being the most prestigious, in-demand young actor and actress in the known world didn’t count for much when the world’s most respected director (who also happened to have approximately 75% of Hollywood on his payroll) wanted to negotiate a contract with you. This was a lesson Ichigo and Rukia had learned the hard way three months prior, when Urahara Kisuke had contacted the two of them for the lead roles in his latest project.

Of course, nothing about the contract had seemed _hard_ when they signed it. Rukia was an established actress already, having been in the business since childhood. She had won multiple awards, and had finally snatched the coveted Best Actress Oscar three years prior to _the contract_ at the tender age of 22. Ichigo, on the other hand, was an up-and-comer, a highly successful model who fell into acting and found he had a natural talent for it. His first role as a young single father struggling to put his girl through school had earned him a veritable _flood_ of nominations and a Best Actor Oscar straight off the bat.

They had never met prior to _the contract_ ; though, of course, they had heard of the other. So when they encountered a 'you must keep up a believable facade of absolutely hating each other’s guts’ clause in _the contract_ ('There’s nothing like a bit of behind-the-scenes drama to skyrocket sales and interest!’ Urahara had said brightly, 'especially when the two leads, who are enemies in the movie, are enemies in real life as well!’), they signed it without a second thought. They were talented actors. They knew next to nothing about each other. They certainly DIDN’T hate each other, but it wouldn’t be hard for them to pretend. And they’d do anything to be in a Urahara movie.

The risk they took was calculated, but _boy_ , were they bad at maths.

 

*

 

“What’s an insult I haven’t used against you yet?” Rukia asked idly, as she flipped through a gossip magazine. Ichigo shrugged and pulled up his laptop.

“We’ve been through quite a few in the past four months, any more than that and we’re going to have to start delving into Shakespearean territory.”

Rukia glanced up at him. “Oh? Like what?"

Ichigo performed a quick search. "You putrid maggot-brained malt-worm?"

“…. I like it.”

 

*

 

"You _putrid maggot_ -brained _malt_ -worm, have you never studied a _day_ of Shakespeare in your entire _life_ –”

“Leave Shakespeare _out of this_ , lady, it’s not _his_ fault you’re so shocking at intonation–”

Sado, Uryuu, and Orihime exchanged exasperated looks.

“How much longer?” Orihime mouthed, jerking a thumb in the direction of the fighting.

“Five months,” Uryuu mouthed back, and Orihime clapped a hand to her forehead.

 

*

 

They had done an excellent job at keeping the 'pretend to hate each other’ clause at first, mostly because they DID dislike each other. Well, sort of. Rukia found Ichigo mildly obnoxious, stubborn to a fault, while Ichigo thought Rukia kind of supercilious and lofty. But they were extremely impressed by the calibre of the other’s acting, and before long they had got to talking in their trailers late into the night about blocking scenes, tips on how best to convey emotion, and… other things. Then they started noticing really inconvenient details about each other. For instance, Ichigo found he really liked the high colour that came into Rukia’s normally pale face whenever she was screaming profanities at him. Rukia, on the other hand, was mesmerised by the flashing amber fire in his eyes whenever he got riled up, which, thanks to _the contract_ , was often.

Before long, pretending to hate each other had become an exquisite kind of torture.

 

*

 

“Ichi– hmmm, you can’t – you have to stop–”

“Who’s going to make me?” he murmured against her skin, nuzzling her neck with his nose. Rukia bit back a breathy moan.

“I am, Kurosaki,” Uryuu slammed the trailer door open, and once again, the two actors jumped apart guiltily.

“Ishida, fuck oooofffff,” Ichigo groaned, but Uryuu just brandished a wad of paper in his face.

“You’ve only got three more months left of the contract, you can’t fuck it up now!” Uryuu said indignantly.

Three months had never seemed longer to Ichigo than just then.

 

*

 

“Horrid, manipulating _bitch_ –”

“Cocksure, arrogant _upstart_ –”

“Kisuke, you sure those two hate each other? Kinda looks like they enjoy it, a bit.”

“Ah, Yoruichi, when have you known me to be wrong? Those two loathe each other’s _guts_ , trust me on this one.”

 

*

 

After all that, their cover was blown with one month left of the contract to go.

Ichigo could have _sworn_ there was no-one around. Rukia had personally made sure that their quick weekend away at one of her brother’s many resorts would be completely untraceable. They had even posted guards around the entire perimeter of the property.

Paparazzi, it seemed, always found a way.

 

*

 

Oddly enough, when their ruse was discovered, far from the interest in the movie _plummeting_ , it actually increased _tenfold_. It seemed the fans, who had followed their every feud with such avid interest, were actually keener to see them kiss and make up than to continue fighting.

Funny how fandom worked that way, really.

 

*

 

“It’s lucky, though, that it happened that way, don’t you think?” Rukia said to Ichigo on the night of the premiere, as she straightened up his bow tie. “Especially after all Urahara said about generating interest. I thought we were done for.”

Ichigo shrugged. “Urahara clearly didn’t know _jackshit,_ ” he said thickly, keenly aware of Rukia’s delicate hands on his neck, brushing over his shoulders, down his chest. He caught them in his larger ones and pulled her in closer to him.

“Well, it’s freed us from having to continue this charade, so I’m thankful,” he said, before planting a kiss on her cheek. Rukia smiled and ruffled his hair.

“Let’s go knock this out of the park. Follow me.”

“Anywhere,” Ichigo replied, and meant it.

 

*

 

“…. hey, Ichigo– you don’t think– making it look like we hate each other, publicising our 'enmity’, the getaway that no-one knew about except the production crew, those photos of us kissing by the pool, the massive spike in interest just before the movie release– you don’t think– maybe– Urahara… planned this?”

“……….. mother _fucker._ ”


	3. Formal Dress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're late for Inoue and Ishida's engagement party, and then Rukia comes down the stairs with a... peach-shaped clutch?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I saw [this photoset](http://www.hashtagartistlife.tumblr.com/post/125232932944) on tumblr and this was the only thing that came to mind tbh

 

When Rukia comes down the stairs to join him, Ichigo thinks he might bust a vessel. The clinging mint gown is all very well and good, but it’s what’s in her _hands_ that has him riled up like a puppy at a stick convention. It’s– it’s–

“Well, let’s go!” she says brightly, and Ichigo is almost choking.

“Go– go _where_ –”

Rukia frowns. “To Inoue’s engagement party? With Ishida? You know, the one that you dressed up in a suit for?”

“If you think I’ll let you be seen anywhere in public with– with that indecent _thing_ in your hands–”

Rukia looks down at her hands, nonplussed. “What, this? I don’t understand–”

“Rukia, that thing’s a–”

“– it’s just a peach-shaped clutch, Ichigo, what’s your _issue?_ ”

Swallowing back his embarrassment, Ichigo realises that there is no way to explain his aversion to _the thing_ without making a colossal idiot of himself. He wills for some composure; finds none. He’s a blushing, stuttering mess.

Rukia pays no mind. “Well, if you’re done critiquing, let’s go, shall we?”

Ichigo tamps down on the riot in his head and manages a weak nod. Rukia looks at him strangely and shrugs, turning around for the door, and Ichigo nearly collapses there and then.

Backless. Her dress is completely backless, all the way down the curve of her spine almost to her hips, and the way the material is clinging to her form is affording him a lovely view of her–

Rukia hits him with that _stupid_ clutch. “Ichigo! Are we going or not?”

Ichigo rubs his nose and desperately looks anywhere but her. “Alright, alright, I’m coming–”

 _‘And so will she, later on,_ ’ a voice supplies in his head, and Ichigo accidentally walks into the glass doors of the Kurosaki Family Clinic.


	4. Dinner and Other Such Hazards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are tears in Inoue Orihime’s eyes when she turns to face Uryuu in the small flat that they share.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt + pairing meme. The prompt was 'I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice'.

 

There are tears in Inoue Orihime’s eyes when she turns to face Uryuu in the small flat that they share.

“It’s okay, Uryuu-kun,” she says in a trembling voice, “I’m fine, truly, you don’t have to pretend—”

Like _hell_ she’s fine, Uryuu thinks, she’s not fine at _all_ , but she’s doing that _thing_ of hers where she scrunches up her face into a semblance of a smile and it only serves to make her look more heartbreaking since, you know, she’s doing it through a veil of tears. Uryuu’s cursing himself internally. He doesn’t even remember the last time he screwed up this badly.

“Orihime, listen—I didn’t mean it, I swear—”

“No, no, Uryuu-kun, I’m not— _sniff_ —not upset—I just—”

“Orihime, please, listen to me—”

“I know— _sniff_ —that I haven’t been the most—the most _interesting_ lately— _sniff_ —and you seemed so busy and tired at work and I just thought— _sniff_ —that maybe something a little _different_ — _sniff_ —might cheer you up a bit—”

“It did, it did, Orihime, you have no idea how much I appreciated it—”

“Don’t—don’t lie to me, Uryuu-kun!” Orihime all but screams, the loudest sound he’s ever heard from his wife in their five years of courtship, and Uryuu flinches. “I—I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice, but I _do_ notice, I _do_ , and—and— you don’t have to lie to me anymore, Uryuu, you just _don’t!_ ”

Her voice rings for a few seconds in their tiny kitchen, and Uryuu stands there in helpless shock. Part of him is glad at the fact that she’s _finally_ dropped the –kun from his name, but another part of him is warning him that he’s wildly out of his depth here and likely going to be kicked out on his ass. Being a doctor hasn’t prepared him for _this_. Hell, being a goddamn _gynaecologist_ wouldn’t have prepared him for this.

Orihime rubs soothing circles on her pregnant belly with her hands and looks at him tearfully.

“… You don’t really like my cooking at all, do you, Uryuu-kun?”

 _“No!”_ he hastens to answer, “No, of course not, that’s not the case at all! Your cooking is—really—really creative! It’s just what I need after a long day at the hospital, you know what the food there’s like, all really bland and unimaginative—”

Orihime allows herself to be mollified as Uryuu continues to heap similar praise on her cooking, subtly binning the unholy combination of spinach, cereal, mayonnaise and liver that she had called dinner that day. He continues until he’s run out of synonyms for _daring_ and _novel_ and _inspired_ , and then makes some more up until she’s satisfied. She goes to sleep with a small, happy smile on her face, and safe in the dark of their bedroom, Uryuu wipes his brow in relief.

He’ll go to bed hungry today, again. He’ll have to buy breakfast and lunch at the hospital cafeteria tomorrow, too. He’s likely got another five months of this left to go—pregnancy, while suiting Orihime _beautifully_ , has had just one unexpected drawback in that it’s taken her already borderline cooking straight into ‘inedible’ territory.

But, looking down at the rounded figure of his sleeping wife, Uryuu thinks he wouldn’t possibly have it any other way.  


	5. Shinigami Don't Understand What Laundry Is

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Is there a reason you're naked in my bed?" "There is an explanation." Ichigo closes his eyes. He's not sure he wants to hear this 'explanation'.
> 
> Shinigami don't understand mundane things like juice boxes, laundry, and clothes. But Ichigo doesn't seem to understand extremely basic human things like kissing and dating, so who's the loser here, really?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt + pairing meme. The prompt was 'Is there a reason you're naked in my bed?'

Kurosaki Ichigo, nineteen years old, Shinigami substitute, has survived countless dangers that would have offed a lesser man than him by now. The undead equivalent of a large medieval country’s defense force being out for his blood? Check. A supergenius megalomaniac who wants to take over the world grooming him for battle his entire life? Check. A literally omniscient immortal dude designating him public enemy number one to his entire army? Check.

After all this, it would be kind of a letdown to go to the netherworld thanks to something as mundane as a heart attack. Nevertheless, the heart attack he has after what he thought would be a routine sweep for hollows on a balmy summer night is the closest he ever gets to being dead in his nineteen years of life, and that’s saying something seeing as how he _actually_ died once.

The cause? A certain tiny undead _not-his-girlfriend_ , _goddammit_. Ichigo pinches the bridge of his nose and lets out a slow, controlled breath.

“Is there,” he asks, his tone low and tight, “a reason why you’re naked in my bed?”

Kuchiki Rukia sniffs and somehow manages to look _superior_ , like she’s not STARK NAKED in SOMEONE ELSE’S BED right now. “There is an explanation.”

“An explanation.” Ichigo closes his eyes. He’s not sure he wants to hear this explanation.

“Yes.” He doesn’t know how she does it—that maddening Kuchiki inflection in her voice that suggests absolute power over the situation even though, oh, one might be COMPLETELY WITHOUT CLOTHES and AT THE MERCY OF SOMEONE WHO IS CURRENTLY ARMED AND DANGEROUS. He wonders if this is something that’s innate to her and her adopted brother, or if all Kuchiki have a mandatory ‘how to sound better than everyone else around you’ course upon their birth or adoption into the family. He’s hedging his bets on the latter, mostly because he’s heard stories from his dad about teenage Byakuya, and _god_ what he wouldn’t give to be able to meet the guy himself. And now he’s rambling, because he’s trying to tear his mind away from the distraction that is NAKED KUCHIKI RUKIA IN HIS BED. IN. HIS. BED.

“Am I gonna hear this explanation or will I die of old age before you come up with an acceptable excuse for this?”

Rukia sniffs again and Ichigo has an unholy urge to strangle her. Unfortunately, laying his hands on her body isn’t a viable option right now. “I ran out of clothes to wear, and the set I was wearing was dirty, so I thought I’d just wash them and put them back on. I’m waiting for the dryer to finish, then I can slip out of this body into my shinigami form, gather my clothes, and come back and wear them. I thought it was a good plan that would cause minimal hassle for you. I see now that you’re far too uncouth for any thoughts of gratitude to pass your mind, though. I should have known.”

“You’re telling me _laundry_ is the reason you’re not wearing any clothes right now?” Ichigo says, and his voice cracks from the strain. This is _too fucking much._ He’s had it up to _here._ God, hasn’t he done _enough?_ Didn’t he save the world from annihilation, like, three times? Didn’t he maintain his grades all throughout that? Didn’t he get into that good university and that med degree and wasn’t he a good person who helped old ladies across the road? What the hell has he done to deserve _Kuchiki Rukia_ in his life, messing it up with her inability to understand simple human things like juice boxes and clothes and laundry?

“Your inability to keep a supply of my clothes in your room is the reason I’m not wearing any clothes right now!” Rukia counters crossly. “I _told_ you, Ichigo, if you’d just keep a couple of my human world dresses in your closet, you wouldn’t _need_ to take me shopping every time I come visit—”

“And I’ve told _you_ , how exactly will that look to my housemates? We’re not in Karakura anymore, Rukia! I can’t keep a girl’s clothes in my wardrobe without my housemates thinking something’s up—”

“Like what, precisely?” Rukia asks archly. “Like that you have a _girlfriend?_ Good god, Ichigo, some people would think of that as a feather in their cap, not something to be avoided at all costs! Or is it them thinking that _I’m_ your girlfriend you take objection to?”

Ichigo splutters. “I—that’s not what I—of course not! You’re not the objection, I just—”

Rukia just snorts and draws the covers up closer around her neck. Unfortunately, the movement draws his attention to the curves of her body just underneath his thin summer blanket, and a wave of heat that has nothing to do with the current July humidity sweeps through him. He doesn’t just lose his train of thought; it’s ejected spectacularly from his mind on an emergency spring-booster seat and he finishes his sentence with an eloquent gargle of syllables that don’t in any way, shape or form resemble a word.

“When you’re done staring,” she says dryly, “you could make yourself useful and fetch my clothes, maybe.”

Higher functioning slams back into his brain and he turns his head away from the bed so fast he might’ve sprained something. “Y—yeah, alright, so! Say I believe that ridiculous story about laundry! Why the fuck did you decide my _bed_ was an appropriate place to stay while your clothes were in the wash?”

“Would you have preferred I hopped into one of your housemates’ beds?”

Hichigo very nearly jumps out there and then, snarling about Rukia in any other bed apart from his (Ichigo is trying not to analyse why Hichigo’s taken to calling Rukia _Queen_ lately); as it is, Ichigo’s had a lot of practice at controlling homicidal tendencies and manages to quash him down. He’ll think about why he had that violent a reaction later. But for now— “Obviously not, but why didn’t you just put some of my clothes on and wait around?”

Rukia raises an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t do that to you,” she says piously, “I can’t just take your clothes without permission, Ichigo! That would be _wrong._ After all, it’s not like we’re dating or anything, right?”

She continues with a sly half-lidded look at him that makes him want to run out of the room and dunk his head in an ice bucket. “And besides, if it’s the suggestiveness of the thing you’re worried about, I’d think that me wearing your clothes and me in your bed is about the same thing anyway, no?”

Shit. Shit. He was kind of half-joking about the ice bucket before, but now he’s _actually_ on the verge of tearing out of the room to the kitchen, where he can lock himself up in the fridge for all eternity. So Kuchiki Rukia knows _exactly_ how suggestive her being naked in his bed is, and she’s done it anyway, and Ichigo doesn’t entirely know how to process this information, especially now that his higher functioning has once again bid bye-bye and exited the building. A strangled sound escapes his throat that might’ve been something like ‘As if someone even tinier than my sisters wearing my clothes would be in any way suggestive’, but it’s unconvincing as hell, not the least because it’s incomprehensible. Mostly because that ‘someone even tinier than his sisters’ is actually in his bed right now and he’s finding it incredibly, incredibly suggestive. Ichigo wants to straight-up die. Is it possible to die from embarrassment? From unresolved sexual tension? From frustration and confusion and an overload of information that doesn’t make any sense?

Rukia interrupts his denial fest with a delicate snort and gets up from the bed, thankfully (a small corner in his mind is disappointed, but it’s all good, Ichigo’s mostly yelled that part down) with his blankets still wrapped firmly around her. “Whatever, fool. I think I heard the dryer go off, my clothes will be ready. And since you look like you’re about to have an aneurysm, I guess I’ll have to fetch my clothes myself. Move out of my way.”

He actually shunpo-es to the door to get there before her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he hisses, grabbing ahold of her shoulders, “You can’t just—just walk out of my room looking like that!”

Rukia shrugs him off—the blanket dips a little lower in the process and Ichigo is royally fucked. Figuratively. Not literally. (He should be so lucky.) “Well you clearly weren’t going to help so as usual I figured I’d have to do everything myself—”

“Just. Stay. In. My. Bed.” He grits through his teeth, before picking her up (over the blankets! Over! The! Blankets! Let it be known that he did not so much as touch an _inch_ of bare skin) and throwing her back down onto the mattress. Rukia lands in a pile of disheveled fabric and limbs, her short hair going everywhere, and Ichigo tries real hard not to think of how it makes her look like she’s just been ravished. He also fails real hard at this.

She looks up at him through the mess of short dark strands with a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Well, didn’t know you had it in you, Ichigo! Though frankly, I think you should take me out to dinner first, girl’s gotta have _some_ standards, you know—“

He doesn’t even reply to that, because honestly, he set himself up for that one. He simply chooses to wheel around and walk out of his room, grabbing his laundry basket on the way. Just before he closes the door, however, Rukia calls after him with one last parting shot:

“Don’t forget to grab my underwear, too! They’re the Chappy ones!”

Ichigo slams the door shut in her laughing face and tries not to cry.

His neighbor peeks his head out of his room. “Dude, you wanna, like, maybe not advertise the fact that you’re banging your girlfriend so loudly—“

_“We are not fucking dating!”_

 

*

 

 _“—never taking your advice again, Matsumoto, I’m pretty sure I almost_ killed _him and I’d really rather not stand on the Sokyouku again for accidental manslaughter of the savior of the world—”_

_“—are you serious? That’s some ironclad control on the boy, I’m impressed—”_

_“Well, he does have a murderous hollow as his zanpakutou spirit, I’d say he’s practiced at keeping his urges in check—”_

_“—shit, forgot about that one, but still—how the hell does he resist you, stark naked, tied up in strategic places in ribbon with your best ‘I’m yours’ expression—”_

_“… alright, so I might not have executed this exactly as you instructed me—”_

_“WHAT?! Kuchiki, you’re as hopeless as him, no WONDER my plan didn’t work—”_

_“—look, Matsumoto, I am not about to slather myself in—what the hell was it you suggested?_ Cream and honey _in front of him before he can even get the words ‘date’ and ‘Kuchiki Rukia’ strung together in his head without combusting—”_

_“—alright, alright, but hear me out on this next plan, strawberry-themed negligee—”_

_“—_ Bye _, Matsumoto.”_

 

*

 

After all that, he ends up kissing her on an ordinary Tuesday morning, when she visits him straight after a mission to Hueco Mundo. There is sand in her hair and bags under her eyes and nothing special about the tatty desert cape and worn shihakusho she’s wrapped up in, but she doesn’t think he notices at all when he absently kisses her hello as though they’d been doing it for centuries. It’s short and sweet – a ‘welcome back’ kiss, like a husband might give a wife that had been away—but when he realises what he’s done, he does not panic as she thought he might do. Instead, a trace of a blush winds its way across his cheeks—but his eyes are steady on hers, with the hint of an amused question in their amber depths. _Why haven’t we been doing this before?_

Well, hell if Rukia knows. They burst out into laughter together, but it’s cut short when their eyes meet again and he pulls her towards him—harder this time, more forceful, with more _intent_ in his touch than there had been before.

Rukia doesn’t return to the Seireitei until dawn of the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is obviously set after the conclusion of the Thousand Year Blood War arc. Ichigo defeats Ywhach and is going to university in the human world. While I am a firm believer of ‘Ichigo and Rukia are pretty much a done deal rn and when this arc finishes they’ll just have the mutual understanding that they are A Thing and there won’t be any dramas regarding this matter’ (you can message me for why *I* think this is the most in-character interpretation of them so far), it’s still valid and really fun to write Ichigo being a blushy blushy mess around Rukia! Hence this fic. I hope you enjoyed reading!)


	6. Pity That Byakuya Only Requires 1 Point To Jump Straight To Murder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kurosaki Ichigo and Kuchiki Rukia are the worst chef/patissiers to ever grace the 5-star restaurant scene, well, ever. Didn't anyone teach them what was and was not appropriate behaviour in the kitchen?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Ichiruki skype chat were discussing an Ichiruki chef! AU where Byakuya’s 5-star patisserie and the Kurosaki’s award-winning Japanese restaurant are right next to each other, and Rukia and Ichigo are the patissier/chef at their respective restaurants. Of course, the AU soon disintegrated into 'food fight in Byakuya's 5-star patisserie past midnight' because these two are absolute children (I apologise to any actual chefs and patissiers who would never desecrate a kitchen this way), so that's what we have here.

 

_ Shitfuck. _

Look, Ichigo’s never been the eloquent type, even on the best of days, so when something like this happens he reckons he’s entitled to a pass for his not-so-graceful way of phrasing things. Rukia’s constantly ragging on him about it (never mind the fact that she has the roughest street-rat guttersnipe mouth on her when she’s pissed; oh no,  _ he’s _ the one who’s apparently got to watch where he drops his relatively tame ‘fuck’s), but honestly, he’s pretty sure he’s about to die within the next five seconds so if she has a problem with him swearing she can yell at him at his  _ funeral _ . He doesn’t give two shits about her and her rants about propriety– as if she can talk when she’s the one who seduced him in their kitchen last week!!– not when his tragically short life is flashing before his eyes on fast forward.

Still, he does kind of wish his last words could be a little less ‘I fucked up, I’m a human disaster’ and a little more ‘I am facing my certain annihilation with heroic calm’. Ah well. You win some, you lose some. And he’s had a relatively good run so far, he decides. Countertop sex with Rukia last week had been a definite highlight. And he’d actually gotten away with that one (and the one before that, and the one before that), so he decides to count the current tally as 5-1 to Kurosaki Ichigo. Which is, you know, quite good when one is playing against a Kuchiki.

Pity that Byakuya only requires 1 point to jump straight to ‘murder’.

The Kuchiki in question raises a hand slowly to the pizza dripping down his face, and wipes the cheese off with the kind of icy dignity that no other person on earth would have been able to manage with mozzarella on their cheek. But, of course, because he’s Kuchiki Byakuya, he somehow makes the movement look both mortally threatening and graceful as fuck. Ichigo closes his eyes and accepts his imminent destruction. Yeah, he’s had an alright life so far. He doesn’t have many regrets. He only hopes Byakuya will be merciful and make it relatively quick–

“Kurosaki Ichigo.”

He should be so lucky. “Yes?” he squeaks, cracking an eye open to assess the situation.

Byakuya regards him with a bland expression that Ichigo knows is hiding daggers behind it. “You threw a pizza at my face.”

“Yes.”

“……… and ‘shitfuck’ is all you have to say about it?”

“……………….. yes…?”

Behind him, Ichigo can practically see Rukia mentally facepalming. Don’t ask him how he knows, he just does. Bitch. Just because it’s not her life on the line. She’s the instigator here! The food fight, the workbench sex, the everything. He’s innocent, goddammit. He’s been wrongfully framed.

… Not that Byakuya looks to be in the mood to listen. Ichigo sees the tomato paste splattered all over his pristine suit and mentally calculates how many hours he needs to work to replace it for him. He gives up halfway through when the numbers start looking around the five-figure mark. He’s pretty sure he could sell all his organs on the black market and he still won’t make enough to repay Byakuya for the suit. All things considered, the easiest way out of this situation is probably just death at Byakuya’s hands.

He can’t take this tense silence anymore.

“Look. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, ok? I fucked up. I fucked up, I know I fucked up, and you’re probably pissed off as hell and you know I don’t have enough money to repay you for the suit and– oh god, just, just kill me quickly, ok? That’s all I ask of you.”

He hangs his head after this ridiculous outburst, and waits for the inevitable, but then–

“… I trust this kitchen will be spotless by tomorrow morning.”

_ What? _

“What?” Ichigo says, stupidly, looking back up at Byakuya with an incredulous expression– “That’s it? No threats of dismemberment? No kidnapping and live dissecting to harvest my organs? No swift but painful cleaver to the gut? Nothing? All I have to do is clean the kitchen?”

Byakuya sweeps his cold gaze over him from head to toe. “As much as I am displeased to find my kitchen in this state of disarray, I can hardly punish only you when my sister was clearly an active participant in the destruction. But both of you had best to be warned–” he turns his displeased glare on Rukia now, and she does her best to look trite (liar) – “any further attempts to debase my kitchen with any acts aside from the act of creation, and I–”

He stops, and the following silence is ominous. Ichigo follows Byakuya’s line of sight, wondering what exactly his gaze has landed on, and sees–

oh,  _ shit. _

“Rukia,” he mutters out the corner of his mouth, and Rukia unfreezes just enough to nod her head a tiny fraction.

“What–” Byakuya says in a strangled voice, and Ichigo reaches behind him stealthily to grab one of Rukia’s wrists.

“-is–”

Rukia swallows heavily and reaches her hand out, but Ichigo yanks her back and shakes his head at her.

“–the meaning–”

“But Ichigo–!!” Rukia hisses, but Ichigo’s resolute: she’s not getting that particular item of clothing back, well, ever. She’s gonna say her goodbyes to it right now. It’s gone. Zip. Nada.

“–of this–?!?!?”

Byakuya finally manages to finish his sentence, and whirls around to face them again. Ichigo swears he sees his hands twitching towards the collection of kitchen knives on the counter, kept honed by Hanatarou’s tireless hands, but like hell they’re gonna stick around to see what unholy wrath Rukia’s lacy white underwear hanging off the corner of that bench is going to unleash.

“Run,” he tells Rukia, and promptly proceeds to give her no choice in the matter, hauling her onto his shoulder and  _ legging it out of there _ .

 

*

 

“….Hey, Rukia, reckon Byakuya’d forgive me if I told him you were an ‘active participant’ in that, as well?”

“Kurosaki Ichigo, don’t you dare–”

“– But Byakuya said ‘no acts in the kitchen aside from the act of creation’ and what we were doing was technically an act of creation–”

“Ichigo, I will throw this cleaver at your  _ face _ —”


	7. The Art of the Cockblock: Kurosaki Ichigo Edition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I have an exam in three days, and if you so much as TOUCH any of the other papers on this desk I will punch you in the dick.” Well, that's one way to kill a mood. Kurosaki Ichigo wonders what he's done in a past life to deserve this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My Ichiruki skype chat were discussing the most ridiculous ways Ichigo could get cockblocked, and someone threw in the line of dialogue in the summary. And before I could stop myself I found myself writing this.

 

“Rukia.”

Ichigo’s voice is low, smoldering—it’s a husky breath of a voice, with an undercurrent of what is almost a growl running through it. It’s the kind of voice you’d probably want to hear on the other end of a phone sex line, the kind that snakes around your body like a caress and speaks to you about half-lidded eyes and shared secrets and unchecked desires. It’s the kind of voice you’d would want whispering into your ear, as you’re skin-to-skin and hip-to-hip and playing out every private fantasy your mind can possibly conjure up.

Rukia knows that voice, and she’s not having any of it.

“No, Ichigo,” she says firmly, not even taking her eyes off the papers she’s strewn out over _his_ desk. “Not tonight.”

“Why not?” Ichigo persists, still in that smoky come-hither voice. He drops it a further half-tone and skates his fingers across her bare shoulders, across the base of her neck. “Are you _sure_? Too much stress is _extremely_ detrimental to efficient studying, you know. Trust me, I’m a doctor’s son.”

Rukia snorts. “Bringing up your father in this situation isn’t exactly going to make me want to bang you, you know,” she says, and behind her, Ichigo internally curses. _Fuck_. He really was as bad at this ‘seducing’ thing as Renji had said he was going to be. Not that he was going to let the bastard have the satisfaction of knowing he was right. The night was still young. He still had time to get Rukia away from those damned papers of hers. He wouldn’t give up just like _that_.

He bends down double and places a gentle kiss on Rukia’s neck, where it slopes into her shoulder. He kisses up along the path of her jugular, alternating between lips and tongue, and pauses when he gets to the skin below her earlobe. He stops there, his mouth a hair’s breadth from her skin, and is pleased to see Rukia isn’t entirely unaffected by his attempts—she shivers, and he lets out a long, hot breath onto the triangle of skin just behind her ear.

He takes her earlobe between his teeth, and Rukia drops her pencil.

“Ichigo…” she says, and he’s positively smug at the breathless quality of her voice.

“Yeah?” he murmurs, his hands carding through her hair to pull it away from her neck. He licks a spot just under her jaw ( _Cheater,_ Rukia thinks, he _knew_ what that spot did to her), and revels in her soft moan.

He has this in the _bag_.

“Yeah, Rukia?” he prompts, husky and low, still concentrating on kissing down her jawline to reach her lips, when Rukia swivels around to look him straight in the eye and says—

“What’s Newton’s Second Law of Motion?”

He deflates faster than a popped balloon. _“What?”_ he demands, collapsing to his knees with the _absurdity_ of the question, one arm hooked around the back of Rukia’s chair for balance. “Are you _seriously_ thinking about that _now?!_ ”

“Well, I told you, I have to learn all your human-world academics now, especially since I’m on ‘long-term reconnaissance’, and the Soutaichou expects nothing but the best from us wherever we are, and—”

“Rukia. I am _seducing_ you. I was doing a pretty damn good job at it too! And you want to think about _physics?_ ”

Rukia scoffs. “Please, Ichigo, you’re a hundred years too young to get anywhere _close_ to successfully seducing me—“

There’s no other word for it. Ichigo growls, and _pounces_ like a cat going for prey. Rukia’s eyes widen in the split second before he makes contact, and the next thing she knows, she’s pinned to the desk by her wrists, Ichigo bending over her. He’s got a knee shoved between her legs, and his face is bare _inches_ from hers.

A single loose paper falls to the floor. Rukia feels her pencil digging into her back.

“What’re you gonna do now, then, huh?” Ichigo smirks, and god, if there’s one thing Ichigo’s won the genetic lottery for, it’s his ‘I won and I know it’ smirk. His hair falls into his face _just_ so, his eyes light up with a wild amber fire, and the unshakeable confidence drawn in the curve of his lips is enough to make _anyone_ weak at the knees.

Rukia considers him a moment, before speaking.

“I have an exam in three days,” she enunciates clearly, and sees Ichigo’s smile dropping further with every syllable out of her mouth, “and if you so much as TOUCH any of the other papers on this desk I will punch you in the dick.”

Ichigo opens his mouth to say something, closes it, opens it, then shuts it again.

Then he meekly lets Rukia go, before slinking out of his room.

Rukia huffs, and straightens her dress. She picks up the piece of paper that fell off the table, and resumes studying. If she fails this test because of _Ichigo_ , he’s never going to get laid again.

(She achieves a 95% for the test. She blames Ichigo for the missing 5%.)


	8. Of Pomegranate Seeds and Counting Spring

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All the myths have it wrong. There was never a God of Death or a kidnapped, helpless Goddess of Spring. There was simply a very lonely woman who thought that everything good she touched turned to ash beneath her fingers, and a very lonely man determined to show her that was not the case. 
> 
> There was simply Ichigo and Rukia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sequencefairy](https://sequencefairy.tumblr.com) and [mizulily](https://mizulily.tumblr.com) suggested Ichiruki Hades/Persephone au but reversed, and as always i am weak, weak, weak. May or may not become multichaptered, depending purely on whether or not I have the time....

 

“They didn’t tell me the God of Death was a four-foot _girl._ ”

“Four foot _eight_ inches,” the girl corrects automatically, before curling around her staff in a wisp of smoking darkness to lean over the golden youth. “They didn’t tell me the precious daughter of the exuberant God of Harvest was an angry, surly _boy.”_

“Daughter _s_ ,” the boy corrects, scowl deepening. “You’re thinking of my twin sisters. I’m Goat-Chin’s eldest son, but he doesn’t like to mention it. Ruins his image as bountiful bringer of the grain, flanked by two pretty girls as the Goddesses of Spring and Rebirth.”

The girl quirks an eyebrow at him. “You refer to the esteemed God of Harvest as _Goat-Chin?_ ”

“Listen, I’ll refer to my idiot dad however I like, ok? Who are you, anyway? ‘Goddess of Death’, my ass. I’ll believe you’re the Goddess of Death when the public at large finally believe the Goddesses of Spring and Rebirth is actually just a _God_ of Spring and Rebirth, and that he hides out in crappy abandoned fields because his dad doesn’t want to admit he fucked up.”

The girl listens to the boy rant with an amused look on her face, and when he stops to draw breath, she flicks her wrist and rends the ground asunder.

A ghastly chill emanates from the gaping maws of the earth, and the cries of the damned float on the wind between the two figures, regarding each other in silence.

“You… you…” the boy stutters, a shaky finger pointed at the girl in an accusatory manner. “You’re not–”

“That was really rude of you,” the girl says conversationally, her look of cool amusement firmly in place. “’Crappy abandoned fields’? I’ll have you know, I put a lot of work into this garden.”

The boy snaps his mouth shut, and snorts rather shakily. “Yeah? That’s even more tragic, then. Everything here’s withered and dead.”

“Precisely. Why do you think I was given the title ‘Goddess of Death’?”

She looks inordinately proud of the stupid, dead grey _mess_ of a field with nothing green in sight, and the boy doesn’t know whether to pity her or run as far away from this nutcase as possible. No _wonder_ the entire pantheon was in such a shambles, if a girl like her was the current God– _Goddess_ – of Death.

Not that he can be throwing stones here, since he was the _secret_ God of Spring and Rebirth no-one was supposed to talk about, but still.

He sighs, and pushes his bright hair out of his face. “Look, have you ever even seen a living plant before?” he asks, and the girl shakes her head.

He thinks he might be imagining the wistful look in her eyes.

Well. That’s…. incredibly tragic. Who the fuck hadn’t seen a living plant before? Her staff was cypress, right? That must have come from a living thing before, right?

He sighs again and closes his eyes, reaching out to touch her cypress staff. The girl flinches a moment, before unravelling the tendrils of darkness she has wrapped around its base to grant him access. He focuses, reaching inside him for something he only vaguely remembers how to use. Yamamoto help him, he hasn’t done this in _so long_. He almost thinks he’s forgotten how, but of course, that’s ridiculous; this was his birthright as the eldest child of the God of Harvest. _Spring and Rebirth_.

From the tips of his fingers, a _greenness_ starts spreading. The dead grey of the cypress staff starts to melt into a cacophony of colours– reds, browns, greens. The boy concentrates further, pushing against the dark black emptiness of what he assumes to be _death_ ; then, in a flurry of movement, he’s overrunning it, new shoots sprouting all along the staff from tip to base.

The girl lets out a cry of shock and untangles herself from the staff, almost _flinging_ herself away from it as it starts flowering.

“Relax,” he tells her, “they’re just some flowers.”

“Yes, but I–” the girl begins, before clamping her mouth shut. There’s a faint wash of colour on her bone-white cheeks, and her hand twitches beside her, as though she’s itching to reach out and take the staff back into her hands.

“You can touch them,” he says, offering it to her, “they won’t die.”

“That’s what you think,” she retorts; _ah_ , the boy realises. Yes. Goddess of Death. That was a thing.

“Try it anyway,” he urges her; hesitantly, she reaches out and places a small hand on the very tip of the staff.

A wave of grey spreads out from her fingers and travels down, the newly-flowered stems withering into dust on the way. He doesn’t relinquish his hold on the base, however, and halfway down, their powers collide; there’s a brief struggle during which both of them scrabble for dominance, until they learn to strike a balance and their powers settle down into an uneasy counterpoint. The staff stands between them, half alive, half dead: a paradox not easily seen even in the world of the gods.

The boy removes his hand from the staff, and the grey quickly obliterates the remaining life, leeching the colour out until it returns to its original dullness.

The girl bites her lip, and slowly coils herself round the staff again.

“Would you like to actually _touch_ a plant?” he asks her, and she looks up at him sharply.

“I wouldn’t be able to, you saw how it was just then–”

“Ah, just shut up, ok? I have eyes, you know. I thought of something that might counteract that.”

She looks as if she has an angry retort on the tip of her tongue, but manages to rein it in just in time; she only nods tightly, and then she’s taken completely by surprise as the boy grabs her by the hands and _pulls_.

“What’re you–” she says, incensed, and the wisps of dark smoke around her bottom half resolve themselves into legs and a grey skirt. Her knees hit the ground with a _thud._

“Ah, so you _do_ have legs,” the boy says, smug, and she tries to pull her hands away but he only holds on tighter.

“Yes, sometimes, when I feel like it,” she says waspishly. “Are you letting me go anytime soon?”

“I thought you wanted to know what it’s like to touch a plant?”

She does. Despite herself, her curiosity gets the better of her; she allows him to pull her closer so that they’re sitting knee-to-knee, her hands cradled in his larger ones. He picks a wisp of dead grass from the field, and places it in her hands.

“Concentrate,” he whispers, and she frowns; that would achieve the exact opposite of what he was trying to do–

“Not like that,” he growls, when the piece of grass shrivels up further, “Rein your power in. Concentrate on keeping it away from your hands. I’m gonna push my power into you. It’s probably gonna feel a bit weird, but try anyway.”

There are a million pert retorts teeming inside her; the most polite of them being ‘fuck off, have YOU ever tried to draw your power away from one of your own limbs? That shit’s _hard_ ’. But he’s bending his obnoxiously bright head over their joined hands, expression endearingly serious, and she decides not to ruin his efforts. She closes her eyes and imagines drawing the darkness swirling within her away from her hands; ironically, despite her power being one of _death_ , it feels like she’s drawing her own life away. Her fingers and palms, empty of her power, are curiously numb.

Then, she feels it; the first tentative foray of his power pushing into her skin. _It burns_ , is her first thought; the slice of his power into her palms is a flash fire, brilliant for a second but gone the next. She flinches in his hands, and the next brush of power is more subdued: the warm glow of the hearth on Olympus, rather than the hellfire of Mayuri’s smithy. Slowly, she relaxes her tense shoulders; there is still an edge of heat to his powers, too hot for her to be entirely comfortable, but not so wild and unrestrained that she can’t handle it.

And besides, the little wisp of grass is _changing_ in her palms.

It happens gradually; the curl of dead grey straightens, palest green lightening the edges and spreading to become a rich viridian. The dried-up leaves fatten, becoming glossy, and tiny white flowers begin blooming up and down the stem, each displaying a starburst of golden nectar in its centre. The Goddess of Death looks on in awe, held spellbound by a single stem of the most insignificant forest weed in existence, cradling life in her hands.

Inevitably, as with all living things, the moment meets its end too soon; his warmth withdraws from her in trickles, as does the life in the plant. She watches as the white flowers close then fall, the leaves lose moisture and shrivel up, and the colour fades away. When he is done, and his hands release hers, she holds nothing more than another dead strip of grass: one of millions in this garden of hers.

They’re silent for a long time after this. The girl thinks for a while about many things, but eventually decides (for the first time in her life) to _fuck it all_ , and looks up at the boy nonchalantly.

“You know,” she says, offhand, “it’s a grievous offence to trespass on the gardens of the Goddess of Death.”

“Oh?” says the boy, in a bored tone. But when their eyes meet, he smirks at her. She feels a matching smile curve up the corners of her own lips.

“Definitely,” she confirms. “There are some gardens in the Underworld that could use some tending to. You have quite the green thumb there. I could use someone like you.”

She holds out her hand. The offer hangs there a moment, poised in time and space; neither parties are quite aware of the kind of repercussions it will have.

Then the boy takes her hand, and fate is sealed. The hundreds of millions of parallel possibilities crash into each other and dissolve; their path is set.

(Perhaps their path has been set long before either of them came into the cosmic equation.)

“Why not,” he grins, all hard bright eyes and teeth; “I was getting bored of staring at corn fields all day anyway.”

His hand feels scorching in hers as she leads him to the chasm in the ground. “My name is Rukia.”

He picks up her staff, and hands it back to her; flowers bloom in the split second before she takes it from him. “And I’m Ichigo.”

She puts two fingers to her mouth and whistles; with a clap of thunder and black lightning, her chariot appears, pulled by two skeletal horses shrouded in the blue flames of Tartaros.

 _‘Show-off,’_ she hears Ichigo mutter behind her, and pulls him by the wrists to their ride, laughing.

“Nice to meet you, Ichigo,” she tells him, before taking up the reins and looking back at him. He is, she is pleased to note, looking rather apprehensive at the sight of her at the reins.

She smiles, blue fire in her eyes.

She hasn’t felt this alive in _centuries._

“Hold on tight,” she says, and with an ear-splitting shriek that chills every drop of blood in Ichigo’s body, the ground swallows them up, leaving not a single trace behind.


	9. Empty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You came back."  
> "You know I'll always come back to you. By whatever means necessary."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [Deathberryprompt's](http://deathberryprompts.tumblr.com) weekly prompt, ‘you came back’. In light of Ichigo echoing Rukia’s words about despair in the recent chapter, this seemed fitting.

 

“You came back.”

“Of course I did.” Ichigo grins, pulling her to him by her waist, and Rukia is helpless to resist him.

“I – I thought you were – _dead_ ,” she chokes, the words more of a sob than she meant them to be, and he pulls her in closer. She buries her face in his chest and inhales his scent.

“Never stopped me before,” he breathes, stroking her hair, and she lets out a strangled noise that’s half laughing, half crying. “I’ll always come back to you, you know. By whatever means necessary.”

Something tugs painfully in her chest at that; tears fill her eyes, blur her vision. She looks up to find him smiling down at her tenderly, and in that instant, she crumbles. “Ichigo, _Ichigo—”_

She reaches up, but he’s gone.

“Ichi—?”

It’s dark. Kuchiki Rukia blinks once, twice; she’s disoriented, her night vision coming slowly. The air around her is horribly cold. She sits up slowly, shaking the sleep from her limbs.

Her bed is empty, and Kurosaki Ichigo is nowhere in sight.

She shudders in a breath; holds her arms around herself, as if to keep from disintegrating. She slips out of the bed, shrugs into a nightgown; her footfalls are silent as she walks to the crib in the corner of the room.

There’s an infant sleeping in the crib. His hair is a brilliant shade of orange, unmistakable even in the darkness, and behind his closed eyelids, Rukia knows his eyes are a deep violet. Gently, so as not to disturb him, she picks him up and holds him close. Silent tears roll down her eyes and soak into the hair that resembles his father so much.

Kurosaki Ichigo never got to see his son. Rukia tries not to think of this as she cries.  


	10. Passive Aggressive Florigraphy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Ishida-kun, do you have any idea what these flowers mean?”
> 
> “I own several tomes on floriography, Inoue-san, rest assured I know what I’m doing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there was [this post](http://hashtagartistlife.tumblr.com/post/145892111819/flower-shop-au) on tumblr, and then rodella/mizulily said 'ok but Uryuu getting flowers for Ryuuken' and this was the result. Also, read the continuation [here.](http://hashtagartistlife.tumblr.com/post/145893725299/mizulily-hashtagartistlife-flower-shop-au) For reference: orange lilies - hatred, foxglove - insincerity, meadowsweet - uselessness, geraniums - stupidity, and yellow carnations - you have disappointed me.

 

“You want me to make a bouquet for Ishida-san,” Orihime tips her head in confusion, “using orange lilies, foxglove, meadowsweet, and geraniums?”

“And yellow carnations,” Ishida-kun interjects, slamming a $20 note onto her counter. “Don’t forget those. Very important.”

Orihime looks up at him. “Ishida-kun,” she says gravely, “do you have any idea what these flowers mean?”

“I own several tomes on floriography, Inoue-san, rest assured I know what I’m doing.”

Orihime twirls the note with his strange request on it in his lilting script between her fingers. “…. so what’s the occasion?” she asks, while she resignedly pulls out a bunch of yellow carnations from her stock.

“It’s Father’s Day.”


	11. Long Live

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Alright, then,” he says, and, in some strange way, it’s both a beginning and an ending. “I suppose it starts when she saves my life…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [Deathberryprompt's](https://deathberryprompts.tumblr.com) weekly prompt, 'grasping'. I basically used it as an excuse to write out a scenario that's been bumping around my head for a while. It's a complete crack theory, tbh, but it's very dear to my heart, so I hope you guys enjoy!

 

They’re grasping at straws.

“No. I—I _refuse_ ,” Kurosaki Ichigo says, and despite everything, _despite everything_ , Rukia has to stifle a fond smile. It was just so _Ichigo_ to say he _refuses_ , as if this were a particularly annoying favour and not the end of the universe as they know it. Kurosaki Ichigo _refuses_ , as he also refuses to have a sealed shikai, tame hair, and an ordinary destiny; Kurosaki Ichigo _refuses_ , and usually, the world bends to his will.

This time, there are no leeways. Kurosaki Ichigo refuses, but the decision’s not up to him to make. The only person who the choice falls to, the only person who can save the world now, is—

“Will you accept, Kuchiki-san?” Urahara asks her, ignoring Ichigo’s cry of outrage; Rukia meets those shady eyes, expecting to see calculation, and finds nothing but sincerity.

Urahara Kisuke being _sincere._ _It truly is the end of the world,_ she thinks, and a mirthless laugh leaves her lips.

“Do I have a choice?” she asks, and if her voice sounds bitter, she forgives herself for it; whichever way the stone falls now, she will not survive to see tomorrow. She should have been honoured, she knows; her friends are alive, the Vandenreich have been defeated, and offering up her life in defence of the Seireitei is one of the highest honours a Gotei-13 member can hope to achieve. _Happiness_ has no place in the life of a shinigami; _happiness_ is an entirely human emotion, unsuited to the soldiers that they are bred to be.

And yet, in her brief flashes of fantasy for the future, she had hoped they could be _happy_.

“There is always a choice, Kuchiki-san,” Urahara tells her, careful even now, but she shakes her head; there was no choice from the _start._ If she knows this man, this is all a part of his plan; something set in motion far before she ever even existed, and something that will play out far beyond her short lifespan. She is only a cog in its workings—vitally important, to be sure, but picked out very carefully to ensure there are no failings. If she knows this man, he knows her inside out, and from the moment he had chosen her to carry the Hogyouku, the choice has been made for her.

“Not for me,” she smiles, hard and brittle; she sheathes her sword and takes his hand. “But you knew that, didn’t you? That’s why I’m here.”

 _“No.”_ He’s beside her in a heartbeat, ever reliable; the heat of his hand on her wrist _burns_. “You’re not going, Rukia, I didn’t fight all this way just to—just to—”

His voice breaks. Rukia closes her eyes and looks away. She can’t see him like this, cannot face what she is going to be leaving behind; something in her chest aches and she takes her other hand from Urahara and places it on top of his.

“Ichigo, you fool, let go,” she chides, gentle; she avoids his gaze as she prises his death-grip away, finger by finger, but he refuses to release her. “There’s no other way.”

“There is _always_ another way!” he snarls, reiatsu curling over hers, “I will _make_ another way!”

“Be as that may,” she says dryly, “we are out of time.”

As if on cue, a piece of the sky crumbles; the actual sky, not a replica ceiling as there had been in Hueco Mundo. They look at the clear blue shard in pieces on the Wahrwelt floor, and realise: the world is truly ending.

“Kuchiki-san.” Urahara’s voice is tinged with urgency now, and he beckons at her; Rukia looks up at Ichigo, and immediately wishes she hadn’t. How can she leave, when the anguish is written across his face plain as day? How can she leave, when she knows that her leaving will make it _worse_?

“Please—“ he whispers, but he lets her go; her hand slips from his with a dull finality and she wrenches her gaze away from his, before she loses her nerve, before she changes her mind, before she lets the tears escape and goes running back into his arms—

Urahara’s hand, vicelike on hers, erases all other options. Rukia swallows, and looks forward; she will not ever look back, not any more. That option does not exist for her any longer.

“Long live,” Urahara whispers, as he ropes her into place, “ _the_ _Soul Queen.”_

Rukia closes her eyes.

 

*

 

Minatozaki Azusa loses her way on the first day of promotion. Wandering through the vast maze of mostly abandoned white buildings, she wonders if she really made the right choice when she accepted her promotion to the Zero Division. _It’s a great honour_ , everyone had told her, _you get to guard the King of Souls himself!_

 _What? I thought we had a Soul Queen?_ someone had countered, and someone else had agreed _; Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s a Queen now, I’ve heard rumours—_

 _Rumours_ , someone else had scoffed, _we had a King before the war, why would things be any different now?_

 _The war was a thousand years ago,_ yet another had interjected waspishly, _and besides, why don’t we just ask one of the other Captains? Some of them were actually there for the war._

 _Yes, but those Captains never answer_ , someone’d reminded, and that had been that. The matter of whether they had a Soul King or a Queen hadn’t been resolved before she had to leave for the Royal Realm, but she had paid more attention to the rumours and gleaned what she could. The Soul Queen, they said, had been the possessor of the most beautiful zanpakutou in the history of the Gotei-13, and that was why she was chosen for the role; she had once been a wanted criminal, on the verge of execution; she had loved a human boy too much so to punish her, they’d set her on the throne and barred her from leaving. The Soul King, they said, was a great hero of Soul Society; he’d once singlehandedly beat all the Captains in it for the hand of a woman; he’d been some awful hybrid of shinigami, hollow, quincy and human, the product of illegal experimentation; he’d had orange hair.

(Personally, she thought that last rumour was flat-out stupid, but maybe that was just her.)

Neither set of rumours had seemed very concrete, however, so when Azusa finally left for the Royal Realm, under Shiba and Shihouin escort, she still had had no idea what to expect.

 _But I have to admit, I am a little disappointed_ , she thinks to herself, as she rounds yet another crumbling white building in search of the city (an entire city!) that has been assigned to her, _you’d think that if the King or Queen resides here, you’d make an effort to not let it fall into disrepair._ Everywhere, as far as the eye can see, are high white buildings rising into the sky; from far away it looks impressive, but up close, Azusa can see the years it has weathered in the cracks that run like lightning through the structures. She wonders just what exactly is going on in the _Royal Realm_ ; did the Soul King or Queen have a family? Were there Soul Princes, Soul Princesses? Where were the guards, the servants? And, for that matter, _where was her goddamn city?_

She spots a building that looks to be in slightly better shape than the others, and enters it; it is the largest one around for miles, and also the one with the highest tower. She thinks maybe that if she can get to the top of it, she might be able to get a clue as to where she is.

She does not expect the blade that comes whipping in her direction faster than she can think to react.

“Who are you?” comes a husky voice; she is not bound, yet she cannot move a muscle for the reiatsu that fills the space around her like concrete. _How did I not notice this power before?!_ “What do you want?”

“I—my name is Minatozaki Azusa, former 12th Division Captain,” she squeaks, because she feels deadly intent in the reiatsu surrounding her and knows she doesn’t have a shot in hell of fighting its owner. “I was—promoted—to the Zero Division three weeks ago by Urahara-san.”

The blade at her throat stills, and withdraws; the reiatsu around her disappears, and as she gasps for breath and rubs her neck, Azusa hears a deep sigh from behind her.

“That goddamn old man,” someone mutters, and Azusa turns around— “I thought I told him to give me some goddamn _warning_ next time.”

He’s tall, Azusa thinks, blinking, he’s tall and broad and—did he have _orange_ hair?!—he has a wild mane of orange hair that reaches halfway down his back; the man sighs as he sheathes his sword and Azusa blurts out—

“Are—are you the _Soul King?”_

He stops in his tracks and tilts his head at her; it would have been a curious gesture, had it not been for the fact that his eyes are the blankest things Azusa has ever seen. “No,” he eventually replies, “we have a Soul Queen now. What the hell are they teaching you kids down there these days?”

Chagrined, Azusa tears her eyes away from him, only for them to land on a corner of the room which contains…. Well, shit. Azusa has _no idea_ how to even begin describing what’s there. She’s never seen anything like it before in her life.

It’s a woman, encased in a clear violet crystal. Her eyes are closed, her lips parted gently; her palms are turned outwards, as if in benevolent acceptance. Her short dark hair fans like a halo around her face. She wears a black shihakushou, standard shinigami apparel; it looks identical to the one she wears now, minus the Captain’s haori.

“Who—,” she starts, and stops immediately as the man brushes past her; he comes to rest right in front of the woman, placing his hand on the surface of the crystal gently and pressing his forehead against it. There’s so much _longing_ in his eyes that Azusa feels intrusive; this, she is sure, is not something that is meant for public viewing.

She clears her throat, because while she would like to respect this strange man’s privacy, she’s still hopelessly lost; he barely glances her way, but it’s good enough of an opening for her. “Who’s she? Who are you? And if it isn’t too much trouble, could you point me in the direction of the city under my command, please? I’m lost, you see.”

The man sighs again, taps the crystal lightly with a fist; “I swear, Rukia, they get smaller and slower every goddamn year. I don’t know what the hell Kyouraku’s doing with them, but none of them seem to know _anything._ ”

Azusa tries not to be offended as she waits for him with a fake smile plastered across her face.

Eventually, he looks round at her again. “It’s a long story,” he says, the way one might say ‘it’s sunny today’ or ‘you have blonde hair’.

“I’ve got time,” she counters; he looks at her for an uncomfortably long time again, before he sits down and gestures for her to do the same.

“Alright, then,” he says, and, in some strange way, it’s both a beginning and an ending. “I suppose it starts when she saves my life…”


	12. Hello, Farewell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not this. Not him. Not again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Flyingpancakes sent me an ask](http://www.hashtagartistlife.tumblr.com/post/146104452059/what-if-during-the-ichiruki-tag-team-ywach) about the possibility of Yhwach possessing Ichigo and forcing him to fight against Rukia, and while I don’t think this is really a possible outcome where’s the fun in being a shipper if you don’t get to crush one half of your OTP in terrible, agonizing, soul-crushing ways really

 

_Not again._

Rukia looks him in the eyes filled with self-hatred, dodges the sword that comes swiping at her with deadly precision, and dances out of his reach in a light, fluid motion that does not reflect the state of her heart:

leaden. Filled with dread. On the verge of panic–

but she can’t, not _here_ , not _now,_ not when Ichigo is like this. At least one of them has to keep a clear head, at least one of them had to think of a way out of this situation–

Another sweep of Zangetsu, lightning-fast, and blood spurts from the smooth skin of her cheek; his eyes widen a fraction in horror but his limbs do not heed him. Rukia stumbles back, panting, holding back tears. She can’t break down, there has to be a way out of this; she needs to clear her head.

“Rukia,” comes a voice, hoarse, cracked; she whips up Shirayuki to parry the blow that comes swinging down at her with all the force of an executioner’s blade.

“Rukia. You have to kill me.”

She shakes her head; her arms shake with the strain of holding up against Ichigo’s strength, but she will not give in.

He presses down harder. “Rukia– _please_.”

She has to be stronger than him; she has to resist– but looking back up at him, his pained expression blurring with Kaien’s through the tears in her eyes, all Rukia can think is–

Not this. Not him. Not _again._

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, but you know what KILLS me about the whole ichiruki/kairuki/ichigo-and-his-mother dynamic?
> 
> It’s that Ichigo and Rukia were each other’s ATONEMENT. Ichigo and Rukia were each other’s SALVATION from the crushing guilt and despair associated with (what they both perceived to be) their greatest failures. THEY SAVED EACH OTHER. HOW COULD YOU NOT SHIP THEM TOGETHER AFTER THAT? THEY WERE EACH OTHER’S SALVATION.
> 
> And THIS, I think, is why they are each more attuned to the well-being of the other than anyone else. (I mean, obviously they care for ALL of their friends very fiercely, but it’s also clear they they’re special to each other in the way their other friends aren’t.) Rukia and Ichigo are each other’s second chances; the person that they finally managed to save, after so many years of guilt for failing to save their predecessor. THAT’S why they’re so precious to each other. Losing them would mean an even more crushing failure than the first time, because thinking you’ve achieved something only to have it snatched away from you is far more awful than never having it in the first place, imo.
> 
> Honestly, as much as I like to kill one of them off for angst purposes in my art or fics, I feel like it’d make no sense to kill either one of them off in-canon. They mirror each other so beautifully in this; Kubo’s achieved such an aching balance in the fact that they are equally each other’s salvation that murdering one of them now undermines their entire character development from the moment they realise the other person as their second chance— because their character developments BEGAN by getting over the misplaced guilt they each had about their ‘failures’.


	13. Broken Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her love, like a noose around his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [deathberryprompt's](http://www.deathberryprompts.tumblr.com) weekly prompt, 'horror'.

 

There’s something to be said for the horror of relative normalcy in the midst of a war.

Because — Ichigo never lets himself forget it – they are still _at war_ , all of them; to forget even for a moment could prove fatal. Even if the horizons are clear and mornings dawn bright and tranquil, even if the night comes smooth and velvety and the streets ring of children’s laughter, even if none of them are coming home every night with blood on their uniforms—

They are at war. Yhwach is still out there. And all the domestic _happiness_ that surrounds him seems like nothing short of a horror film, being played on loop.

Why won’t anyone around him _see_ —

“Ichigo?”

Her voice is soft, concerned; as it has been all the time, recently. A gentle brush of fingertips against his forearm has him leaping out of his skin.

“Don’t—“ he jerks away from her violently, backing out of the balcony—“don’t, Rukia, you _know_ what this could mean—“

“Ichigo.” There’s a pleading in her eyes these days that Ichigo isn’t used to seeing, and it twists something deep in his heart, makes him ache like he’s got saltwater between his bones. “Ichigo, we talked about this, you _know_ the war’s over now—“

“It’s not, I swear to god, Rukia, it’s _not,_ and I don’t know why everyone’s forgotten but me—“

 _“Ichigo!”_ she flings herself at him so fast he doesn’t even have time to react. He raises his arms defensively, and hers lock around his back as if to keep him from running. ( _As if he would ever want to be anywhere else_ , he thinks). _“Please,_ Ichigo, come back _home_ , the war’s over, it’s been over for a while, you’re _safe_ , what do I have to do to convince you—”

There are tears trembling in her voice, and that is what undoes him; slowly, he lowers his arms and settles them around her.

“S…afe?” he asks, tentative, and she turns her face up to him hopefully.

 _“Yes_ , Ichigo. You’re safe, I promise you, we all are—“

“Promise?”  The question is more childish than he would have liked, but he is beyond caring; he is just so _tired_. All he would like to do is put down his lonely load and rest a while; hold Rukia in his arms without fear of repercussions and breathe in the jasmine scent of her hair—

“I promise, Ichigo. Oh, god, I promise you’re safe. We’re ok, I’m going to protect you, I love you so much—“

A wave of unadulterated terror, sheer and vertiginous, washes over him; the eyelids that had been drifting shut over amber-brown eyes snap open and he shoves her away from him. She stumbles into his closet door, but her wide eyes hold no reproach, only an awful sort of resignation; she reaches out to him again. _“Ichigo—”_

He runs. Turns and does not look back, past Rukia, past his father, past his sisters who try to stop him with surprised expressions—past the glass doors of their clinic and way beyond his tiny street. He wants to run so far that he leaves everything familiar behind, washes himself clean of any possible traces of happiness that might linger on him like a disease. His palms, empty of Rukia’s warmth, sting in the evening air; the ‘I love you’ still ringing in his ears is drowned out by the pumping of his heart and other, more sinister words.

_‘For in that one moment in time where each of you feel the greatest amount of joy and happiness, that is when I shall slaughter you.’_

He runs, but he can’t outrun that voice; he runs, but he can’t outrun his love for Rukia. He runs, but he doesn’t know if he can outrun the happiness that slithers up and coils round his throat like a tangible thing whenever he she tells him she loves him. Her love, like a noose around his neck; slowly choking him to death.

He can’t fight it. He can’t fight her.

Because how do you fight, when you love the thing that’s killing you more than your own life?

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> …. In case it’s not 100% clear, basically: Ichigo is dwelling on Yhwach’s warning in Chapter 680 and shunning all possible chances of happiness; why no-one else seems to take Yhwach’s threat seriously is left deliberately ambiguous, though. Is the war truly not over, and Ichigo’s the only sane one left? Or conversely, is the war truly over, and Ichigo’s the one going insane? Is all of it a future vision provided courtesy of Yhwach? Take your pick.


	14. This Blood On Our Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Please stay with me, he thinks, it’s the only thing I’ll ever ask of you—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt + pairing meme. The prompt was 'I need this'.

 

“I need this,” she says, and that is the exact moment Ishida Uryuu realises he’s lost.

“Inoue-sa—” he manages, before the desperate grip of her fists in his ruined shirt interrupts him; there is a familiar light shining in her eyes and he feels the cold trickle of déjà vu pooling with an awful sense of premonition low in his gut. He closes his eyes and looks away.

“Please,” she says, and her voice is trembling. “Please, please, _please_ , Ishida-kun, I need you to take me with you. Abarai-kun and Kurosaki-kun’s gone ahead, and so has Kuchiki-san, and I can’t be the only one left here—Ishida-kun, _please._ ”

He wants to say _no_. Wants to take her by the shoulders and shake— _look at yourself, you’re not well, have you forgotten what happened above the dome in Hueco Mundo_ —but he doesn’t. He wets his lips, fully prepared to deny her request, fully prepared to chase after Kurosaki and Abarai and Kuchiki-san into the portal by himself, but then he makes the mistake of looking back at her.

And he finds his treacherous lips forming the words _yes_.

 

*

 

It’s the worst mistake of his life.

Whatever he had expected to find beyond the portal, it is not _this_ —the complete devastation of the Seireitei with Kurosaki at the epicentre, his reiatsu barely-leashed and roiling in a violent thunderstorm around him. His rage manifest so thickly around the area that they have trouble _breathing_ — his arm goes around Inoue-san’s waist automatically as her knees buckle under the sheer weight of Kurosaki’s grief. Yhwach is nowhere to be seen. He looks to Kurosaki, opens his mouth to ask him _what the hell happened here_ when—

A body, small and limp and broken in Kurosaki’s arms.

Kurosaki turns his devastated eyes to his, and Uryuu understands everything.

 

*

 

“Heal her,” he croaks, _“please.”_

“Kurosaki, she’s—”

 _“Heal her,”_ he says, ignoring Uryuu, holding out Kuchiki-san’s lifeless body like an offering. “Inoue, _please_ —”

Inoue-san goes sheet-white at the sight, and Uryuu knows, instinctive, that the only thing keeping her upright is the pressure of his arm against her waist. Kurosaki stumbles towards them, and Uryuu tightens his grip on her almost possessively; there is a chill down his spine, and for the briefest of seconds he thinks:

_Keep away from her._

The thought dissipates as Inoue-san rushes out of his arms, her own outstretched and already alight with the beginnings of her healing glow; Uryuu sways a little on the spot, disoriented by her sudden departure. He feels bereft without her warm body against his. He does his best to dispel the sensation as she alights beside Kurosaki, coaxes him into kneeling so she can begin the healing process.

Kurosaki does not let Kuchiki-san’s body go as Souten Kisshun settles over them both.

 

*

 

Everything is grey, and bland, and bleeding into one another, and he loses track of time. Sweat beads on Inoue-san’s brow. Kuchiki-san doesn’t move an inch.

Kurosaki doesn’t move an inch, either, his eyes empty and fixated on Kuchiki-san’s unmoving body.

Uryuu looks away.

 

*

 

He claps a hand on her shoulder when he deems it has gone on long enough.

“Stop,” he says, voice quiet and strained, “Inoue-san, you have to stop—”

She only shakes him off tiredly; does not spare so much as a glance at him as she refocuses the hazy edges of her power over the unresponsive body in Kurosaki’s arms. She sways a little, but waves away Uryuu’s helping hand; barely a minute later, her legs give out and she collapses.

A murderous rage forces its way up his throat, and he rounds on Kurosaki in fury.

“Stop her,” he hisses, the material of the shihakushou slick with blood as it bunches in his fist, “She’s _gone_ , Kurosaki, and if you don’t stop Inoue-san will go the same way too, so _stop her_ right now—”

Kurosaki grips his wrist with enough force to snap it, and Uryuu releases his hold on him with a cry.

Kurosaki’s eyes are wild.

“You don’t understand,” he snarls, but he’s wrong—Uryuu _does_ understand. Understands, with chilling clarity, that Kurosaki is too far gone to care about anything else. “I need this. I need _her_.”

A small hand on his is the only thing stopping him from retaliating with violence. “Ishida-kun, please,” a weak voice interjects, and Inoue-san struggles back into a sitting position. “It’s ok. I’m ok.”

The golden glow of Souten Kisshun starts up again under her fingertips, and Uryuu bites his own tongue and tastes blood.

 

*

 

And so here they are, the four (three) of them: Kuchiki-san motionless and lifeless in Kurosaki’s arms, Inoue-san tired as she leans heavily against him for support, Souten Kisshun thin and weak, and hours and hours of silence between them. The sky above them thick with thunder and unshed rain. The ground beneath them heavy with blood.

The history books, he knows, will call this a victory. Soul Society will rebuild. Kurosaki will be called _hero_ —

He knows the truth. Wars are not won. The price of victory is always blood—on his hands, on her hands, on _theirs._

 

*

 

He notices the instant the soft warm yellow of Souten Kisshun fades into dark red. He feels the shift of reiatsu in the air, the slight tightening of Inoue-san’s shoulders against him; panic seizes him and he wrenches her round to face him.

“What are you—Inoue-san, _stop_ ,” he says, and she only gives him a wan smile.

“No, Ishida-kun,” she says gently, and turns back to Kuchiki-san; Kurosaki doesn’t even look up.

“Inoue-san,” he hisses, but she hushes him, brows furrowed in concentration. Souten Kisshun firms, tightens; it glows brighter than it has in the past few hours combined. Dark, dried-blood red. _Life-force red._ “Inoue-san, you _can’t_ —“

“I can, and I will.” She touches one of Kurosaki’s wrists lightly with her hand. “Kurosaki-kun? There’s something around her wound that’s been interfering with my rejection so far, but I think this will be able to help her. You’ll take care of Kuchiki-san, won’t you?”

At this, Kurosaki’s head jerks up; his dull eyes lighten for the first time in hours, and his lips move soundlessly a moment before he finds his voice. “You—you really can—”

“Yes,” she says, even as Uryuu shouts _“No!”_

There’s a threat in the way she says his name. “Ishida-kun.”

“No,” he repeats, softer; Inoue-san’s eyes gentle.

“Kurosaki-kun needs this,” she says, like it’s an explanation, “ _I_ need this.”

Something rises up in his throat, hot and bitter. “And what about what _I_ need, Inoue-san?” he asks desperately, the words barely escaping round the angry tears threatening to choke him. “What about _me?”_

 _Please stay with me,_ he thinks, _it’s the only thing I’ll ever ask of you—_

There’s a long silence.

And then:

“I’m sorry.”

Quieter than a breath, barely audible; even in the dense silence permeating the space between them.

Souten Kisshun flares brightly, once, before dissipating altogether, and Inoue-san falls.

 

*

 

In his arms, Inoue Orihime breathes her last, and in Kurosaki’s arms, Kuchiki Rukia inhales.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (….If it isn’t 100% clear: Inoue Orihime trades her own life force in order to reject Kuchiki Rukia back to life)


	15. Indelible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An eternity later, Rukia looks up to a world that is too silent, and a crimson stain on her zanpakutou that does not wash out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt + pairing meme. The prompt was 'you missed your calling'.

 

The green light of healing kido washes over him feebly, and Ichigo hacks out a laugh as his bones refuse to knit.

“I think you missed your calling,” he breathes, raising a hand to touch her face. He can’t tell if the moisture on her cheeks are raindrops or tears. “Fourth squad, _clearly._ Forget Captain Kotetsu, they need you in their hospitals, stat.” He smiles at her softly, ignoring her ragged breathing, the desperate set to her chin. He curls his fingers round the strands of her hair, and Rukia swats him away.

“Shut _up_ ,” she gasps, white gloves drenched up to the elbows in his blood, fingers desperately scrabbling over the gaping wound in his stomach.  “Shut up, shut up, _shut up,_ invalids shouldn’t be mouthing off to their healers, oh god, _Ichigo, it won’t close up—“_

“Rukia,” he murmurs, and makes to tuck her hair behind her ear, but she ignores him, angrily swiping a hand over her eyes.

“Shut up, shut _up_ , all your opinions are goddamn rejected, I don’t want to hear what you have to say, you’re not going to die, you’re not going to—“

“Rukia,” he tries again, but she only takes her hands away from him; not a second later, they’re back, this time pressing something long and white against the ruined flesh. She winds and winds it around his torso, hands trembling all the while, as crimson seeps through the pristine fabric.

“Kido wasn’t working, so you decided to go for manual options?” he tries to joke, but then he realises just where exactly she’s got the makeshift bandage from. Sode no Shirayuki’s hilt clinks against him as Rukia reaches the end of the ribbon and ties it back on itself.   _“Rukia—”_

“Shut up, don’t fucking talk, it’s only going to make it worse—” she sobs, and they both know it’s no use anyway; his blood is soaking through the ribbon of her zanpakutou and it won’t be enough to keep death at bay. Rukia tries the kido again through her tears, hands shaking, and Ichigo catches them in his.

He brings them higher up, and stills them against his chest; directly over his heart. There’s no blame in his soft eyes, only understanding and acceptance, and somehow that makes everything worse. And yet, there’s nothing Rukia can do, nothing either of them can do, but wait now for his slowing heartbeats to cease.

“I’d do it again,” he breathes, her hand against his heart— “I’d do it again, a hundred million times over. I’d do it again.”

 

*

 

An eternity later, Rukia looks up to a world that is too silent, and a crimson stain on her zanpakutou that does not wash out.

 


	16. Anaesthesia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If I’d been a better man than you, I would have protected them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt + pairing meme. The prompt was 'must be a day ending in y'.

 

“You’re drunk.”

Ichigo raises the bottle to his lips and takes another swig. “Yeah, must be a day ending in y.”

“You know what day it is.”

“You tell me, Renji. What is it? A Tuesday? A Thursday?”

Renji’s lips tighten. “It’s an anniversary.”

Ichigo laughs. “An anniversary! That ends in a y, too.” He sways a little as he makes for the cupboard and pulls another bottle of alcohol out; Renji snatches it out of his hands and puts it down on the table with a _thud._ “What the fuck, asshole?”

“I said,” Renji hisses, and any other man would have been just a _bit_ cowed, the way his lips are bared over his teeth— “it’s an _anniversary.”_

Ichigo just scowls right back at him. “Why the fuck else do you think I was drinking?”

“I thought you were drinking because it’s a day ending in y.”

Ichigo grins. “Precisely! Now you’re getting it. Now leave me the fuck alone, I like to do my drinking alone.” He reaches for the bottle, and Renji hits his hands away. “Oi! That _hurt,_ fuckwad!”

“Enough.” Renji’s face is thunderous, _dangerous_ , but Kurosaki Ichigo doesn’t look the least bit fazed. “This ends _today_ , Ichigo, you hear me? Look at yourself! It’s been a _year_ now, and all you’ve been doing is drinking and moping—“

There’s a sword at his throat faster than he can blink; Ichigo’s face, devoid of emotion, is inches from his. Zangetsu’s edge is sharp and unbalanced at his jugular. “Don’t tell me how long it’s been,” he says, and the dead tone sends something cold trickling down Renji’s spine. “In fact, don’t talk to me at all. Deal?”

Renji says nothing. Eventually, the sword is withdrawn; Renji lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding and rubs his throat.

“Besides,” Ichigo says, conversational, “Looks like even while I’m drunk and moping I can still kick your ass, hmm?”

“Shiba-taichou wasn’t like this,” is all Renji can think to say.

Ichigo snorts. “My _father,”_ he says, dragging the second word out and making it sound like an insult, “still had me around. My sisters to live for. Who do I have, Renji? Who the fuck do I have left?”

There’s a silence.

“You,” Renji eventually replies, “She left you _you_. Her, and your child, too; they died for _you_.”

A glass shatters against the wall by his head; Renji does not flinch. “Shut—shut the _fuck_ up—“ Ichigo breathes, voice ragged; Renji looks on dispassionately. “They—I—It should have been me instead—”

“But it wasn’t.” Another glass shatters against the wall, raining down shards and droplets of alcohol. Renji presses on. “She left you _you_ to live for, Ichigo, so god help me, you better start _living_.”

“What the fuck does this look like to you, then?!” Ichigo yells, gesturing wildly at the air around him. He holds up his bottle of liquor. “What the fuck does this look like to you if not trying to goddamn _live_?”

“That,” Renji says flatly, “looks like the exact damn opposite.”

Ichigo laughs again, a little wilder. “Well, for _give_ me if we can’t all be like you, Mr. _Thirteenth Division Captain_ , forgive me if her death had an _effect_ on some of us, _I’m_ not the one with forty years of practise pretending she doesn’t exist, after all—“

This time, it’s Ichigo that’s slammed against the wall, a sword at his neck; but unlike him, Renji’s face is distorted with pent-up emotion. Ichigo curls his lip up into a sneer.

“Pushed a button there, did I? Does it hurt, _still_? Forty goddamn years, Renji, and you expect me to get over this in _one_?”

There’s a silent stalemate for a while, broken only by the sounds of their heavy breathing; neither of them are willing to give.

“She chose _you_ ,” Renji whispers eventually, slowly taking his sword away— “she chose _you,_ so I thought that meant you’d be a better man than me.” He sheathes the sword without breaking eye contact. “I thought you’d be a better man than _this._ ”

Ichigo’s expression twists as he looks away first. “If I’d been a better man than you, I would have protected them.”

There’s nothing said between them for a long while.

“Yeah—“ Renji says, as he finally turns to leave, “—yeah, I suppose you would have.”

He doesn’t say anything as Renji’s reiatsu fades away into the distance. Slowly, he curls his fingers around a new bottle of liquor; for a moment, his hand twitches in the direction of the sink as if to pour the contents of the bottle down the drain and throw it away. He clenches his fist, the tendons prominent against the skin for a second, then two as he contemplates—

He lifts the bottle to his lips.

 

 


	17. Phones Connect Me To You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uryuu receives a rather peculiar phone call on a Saturday morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this tumblr post.](http://www.vangohing.tumblr.com/post/142765511769)

 

His phone doesn’t ring often, and when it does, it’s more often than not bad news, so when the sound of the phone ringing shatters the tranquil silence of his Saturday morning, Ishida Uryuu is reluctant to pick it up.

“Hello?” he asks cautiously, fully prepared to slam the receiver down if he so much as hears a single chirp of his father’s upbeat secretary or, heaven forbid, his father’s unimpressed drawl, but what actually comes through the receiver takes him so aback that he accidentally drops it instead.

“Hello? Hello, Ishida-kun! Is this the right number? I’m so glad! Ishida-kun? Ishida-kun!”

“I—Inoue-san?! What—How are you calling me?!”

There’s a short pause at the other end of the line, during which Uryuu can actually _see_ Orihime cocking her head in that way of hers—cheeks puffed out in confusion and a finger held to her chin—trying to work this conundrum out. “Um, I picked up the phone and dialled your number?”

“No, that’s not what I— never mind,” he says, deciding not to mention the fact that only his father’s secretary and his father knew that he had a landline, let alone had his number. He changed it every few months to deter them, but somehow, they always found it out. “I just—it’s Saturday morning, Inoue-san. Is something wrong?”

“Does something have to be wrong for me to call you on a Saturday morning?” she chirps, and Ishida shakes his head vehemently before realising she can’t actually see him.

“No,” he croaks, feeling like an idiot. “Not at all, I just—“

There’s a gasp over the phone. “Oh, no! It’s Saturday morning! You were probably asleep, weren’t you? I’m so sorry, Ishida-kun, I must have woken you—“

“No! No, it’s not that at all, I was—uh, I was awake—“ A lie, but she didn’t need to know that. “Um, Inoue-san, I’m really glad to hear from you, uh, wha—what can I help you with?”

Internally, he curses himself. _What can I help you with?_ What was this, a goddamn department store? He could just hear Ryuuken in his head right now. _Pathetic. Can’t even talk to a pretty girl without going to absolute pieces—_

Inoue-san’s sun-drenched voice interrupts the thorough dressing-down Uryuu is giving himself in his mind. “Actually, Ishida-kun, I was just calling to ask what colour you were wearing to the dance!”

He almost drops the phone a second time.

“The… the _dance_ , Inoue-san?” he enquires, having miraculously kept a hold of the phone through his massive internal turmoil. His glasses fog up, and he adjusts them nervously with a finger. “The… the graduation dance?”

“The very one!” is her sunny reply, and Uryuu has to take a second to collect himself.

“Why… why would you need to know that?” he asks, and Orihime starts chattering at full speed, apparently extremely excited.

“Ah, you see, Ishida-kun, I’m at the fabric store right now, about to buy the fabric for my dress, but I figured I should probably check what _you’re_ planning to wear so that we don’t clash—not that I think we would, your sense of fashion is impeccable after all, but—oooh, maybe we could match? There’s a half-price sale at the Sunflower Tailor, we could go shopping together—“

Uryuu feels faint. “Inoue-san?”

“—be so cute, and blue is a wonderful colour on you—yes, Ishida-kun?”

His voice is hoarse. “Whe….I mean, please don’t misunderstand, I’d love to, but— since when were we going to the dance together?”

There’s a rather ominous silence at the end of the line. A drop of sweat makes its way down Uryuu’s temple; he swallows. _Shit, please don’t let me have fucked this up_ —

“Oh no,” comes Orihime’s voice after an eon, very quiet. Uryuu strains to hear her. “Oh, _no._ ”

“Inoue-sa—“

“Oh, _no.”_

“… Orihime?”

Another long silence, and then:

“….. I forgot to ask you, didn’t I?”

Orihime’s voice, absolutely mortified, and Uryuu feels his heart clutch in his chest. “Inoue-sa—“

There’s a sniffle from the other end of the line, and his heart drops down to his stomach. “Inoue-san, are you _crying—“_

“Did you just call me Orihime?”

….. Shit. _Did_ he just call her Orihime? “N-no?”

There’s another sniffle, and then a watery laugh, and the tight vice around his chest eases. “I like it, Ishida-kun. You can call me Orihime if you’d like.”

A heady feeling of lightness spreads through his veins, and in an uncharacteristic fit of boldness, Uryuu replies in kind. “You too, Inoue-sa—Orihime. You should call me Uryuu.”

“U-Uryuu,” comes her voice, a little hesitant, stumbling around the syllables in his name. She laughs again. She has a really beautiful laugh, Uryuu thinks a little dazedly. He could listen to it for the rest of forever. “Oh, I made a right mess of things, didn’t I, Uryuu-kun?”

He laughs, too. “Well, I believe that _technically_ it’s the guy’s job to do the asking—if you adhere to that sort of thing—so really, it’s my fault too, Orihime-s— Orihime… san…?” he trails off at the end, still unused to her name actually taking shape at the tip of his tongue and not being held back against the cages of his teeth. Orihime’s tinkling laughter soothes his embarrassment.

“I guess we’re going to need a bit more practice to get used to this, hmm, Uryuu?”

“I guess so, Orihime.”

“Well then.” A huff of air, as though she’s exhaling forcefully to steel herself against something. “Ishida Uryuu, will you please do me the honour of accompanying me to the Karakura High Graduation Dance at the end of this month?”

A slow smile spreads across Ishida’s face, one that, for once in his life, he has no intentions of trying to mask. “Inoue Orihime,” he says, relishing the way her name feels in his mouth, between his lips— “Nothing would give me more pleasure than to accept.”

And then, as an afterthought: “You know, blue would be a good colour on you too. I can be at Sunflower Tailor in twenty minutes?”

 

*

 

“Are you fucking—ahahahahaha— _kidding_ me—Inoue had to— pffftsfftsf— call you up and—and ask you to the dance herself—oh god I can’t stop laughing—“

Ishida doesn’t even spare him a glance. “And you’ve asked Kuchiki-san?”

Ichigo shuts up immediately.

 

*

 

(Kuchiki and Kurosaki show up to the dance, dressed in a matching gown and tie, and absolutely insist they didn’t come to the dance _together_ together. Uryuu grabs Orihime a drink, winds a midnight blue tux-clad arm around her similarly midnight blue draped waist, and rolls his eyes.

 _Children._ )


	18. One Of These Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe one of these days, their two worlds would become one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the darling [duckiesteasmiles](https://duckiesteasmiles.tumblr.com) birthday! (And also for [Deathberryprompts'](https://deathberryprompts.tumblr.com) weekly prompt, ‘memory’. Multitasking ftw?) 6 pages of pure, unashamed fluff. I hope you had the best of days, Nami my dear!

 

The first thing Rukia does when she gets back to the human world is drag Ichigo ice-skating.

Well, ok, that’s a lie. The first thing she does in the human world is stab him, kick him, yell at him, slash at him with a sword, then jump in front of _another_ sword for him, in that order. Look, it doesn’t even faze Ichigo anymore; that’s just how the tempo of their relationship goes. He’s long since learned not to try and deconstruct their bond to fit conventional labels. They are what they are, and Ichigo finds it’s much easier to keep things like that than try to figure out just what exactly they may be to each other.

All he knows is that he’s glad she’s back.

Maybe that’s why he doesn’t say a word of protest when Rukia barges in through his window two days later, throws him a few layers of clothes and drags him out onto the street. She’s bouncing on the balls of her feet and babbling so fast he doesn’t even register what she’s saying— but admittedly, he’s not listening very intently. It’s barely been 48 hours since his reiatsu has been returned, and he’s still getting (re)accustomed to the sensation of _power_ thrumming in his veins.

… Well, that and he’s too busy staring at her; her small face is lit up with excitement, and the afternoon light is golden and hazy, lending a softness to her usually-sharp features. He watches her prattle on about something-or-other, and he can’t help it, despite everything; a smile curls the corner of his lips, and his wrist where she holds it is pleasantly warm. If he concentrates, through the heady mix of everyone’s reiatsus inside him, he can feel _hers_ ; somehow calm and _burning_ at the same time. It both soothes and fires him up, this little piece of her strength within him; and he thinks that as long as he can hold it there, there’s nothing on earth that will be able to tear him down again.

“—and so—are you even _listening_ to me, Ichigo?” Rukia’s sharp voice cuts through his reverie, and he focuses on her; her petulant expression reminds him inexplicably of Yuzu, and he can’t help the smile that tugs on the corner of his lips.

“Yeah, yeah, go on,” he says, and Rukia glares at him, apparently not convinced he is paying attention.

“And _so,”_ she says, pausing to check that he’s still listening (he is), “we’re going ice-skating!”

He blinks. And blinks again. She’s holding out a hand to him, expectantly (imperiously), and he blinks one more time.

“I’m sorry, what—?”

She smacks him upside the head. “I knew you weren’t listening, fool!” she berates. “Ice-skating, Ichigo! Take me ice-skating again! I wasn’t _prepared_ last time, this time I’ll show you how much I’ve improved!”

Something tugs at his chest in an odd way at this declaration; to his horror, he feels what might be _tears_ gathering in the corners of his eyes. He pulls away from her and blinks several times to clear them of the unwanted dampness, hoping she won’t notice what he’s doing. She’d never let him live it down.

“Ichigo—?” Yeah, he should be so lucky. Rukia’s peering up at him with a worried expression, a hand at his wrist again; ever since her return, she’s been far more touchy-feely with him, as if to reassure herself that he is indeed still solid and not smoke through her fingers. He doesn’t mind; he won’t ever admit it out loud, but sometimes he needs the reassurance, too. She looks far too ethereal, far too otherworldly for him to be entirely comfortable on occasions. This is one of those occasions—the backlighting of the sun makes her outline hazy, turning her hair to gold and making her look like she’ll dissolve into thin air. Only the touch of her fingertips at his wrist, comfortingly steady and warm, grounds him to the reality that she is back, _he_ is back, and they won’t part again, if he has anything to say about it.

“I’m fine,” he says, a little mulishly, which smooths out the anxiety in her brow and returns the customary touch of irritation to it. “Just embarrassed in advance for you at how much you’ll be outclassed. By me. Again.”

“Oh!” Rukia throws his hand down (he misses her touch already) and crosses her arms in indignation; she jabs a finger in his face menacingly. “Just you wait, you overgrown lump, I’ll show _you!_ Who between the two of us had an ice-type zanpakutou again?”

“Well, that’s even more embarrassing, then,” he replies, smirking, and the two of them bicker all the way to the skating rink; if his hand somehow finds its way into hers, and she doesn’t let it go for the entire journey there, neither of them see fit to mention it.

 

*

 

“So why are _they_ here again?” Ichigo mutters in irritation as he watches six shinigami wreak havoc on the ice-skating rink. It’s only been five minutes, and already there’s at least two crying kids and three confiscations—two wooden swords and a _shuriken_ , what the hell, Renji. If they’re not careful, the entire party was going to be kicked out on their asses, all before he even sets foot on the ice. “Don’t you guys ever have, like _work_ to do?”

“Which is why only the lieutenants are here today!” Rukia insists, as she wrangles the laces on her own skates. “Well, and a third seat and a fifth seat,” she amends as Ikkaku and Yumichika skate by, one aggressively, one sedately. Both of them wave at her and she waves enthusiastically back. “I invited nii-sama and Captain Hitsugaya, too, but they refused on grounds of paperwork. I invited Captain Kyouraku, too, actually, but Ise-san refused on grounds of paperwork, heh. And Captain Ukitake decided to give it a pass, and of course, Kiyone-san and Sentaro-san wanted to stay back after that. And Lieutenant Kusajishi—“

“Jesus, did you invite _everyone_ in the Seireitei?” Ichigo interrupts, reevaluating his current situation and feeling intensely thankful that Yachiru and Kenpachi hadn’t shown up. Hell, he’s glad _Byakuya_ hadn’t shown up. Imagine what a clusterfuck that would have been. “The hell were you thinking?”

“Why do you sound so _annoyed?”_ she counters, straining to tighten her laces. Ichigo huffs and kneels before her, knocking her hands away to do it himself. “And I can do that!”

“The laces are biting into your hands,” he points out dryly, nodding to the red welts on her palms. She flushes and shoves her hands deep into her pockets. “And I’m not annoyed, just… surprised.” Was that what it was? Yeah, that was definitely what it was. He ignores the niggling feeling that that wasn’t quite the word he was looking for and concentrates on tying her skates up instead.

Rukia snorts. “What, so you can invite all your friends to the skating rink, but I can’t? Did you think I had no friends apart from the ones I made in the Gensei, fool?”

Now it’s Ichigo’s turn to flush. “Wha—that’s not what I meant, and you know it—“

A hand on his head stills him. Rukia’s laughing, one hand over her mouth, the other in his hair, patting him like a child. He’s momentarily transfixed by the shadows her eyelashes cast on her marble-pale cheeks. “Oh, Ichigo, you’re too easy,” she chides, and he still has no words for her; the echoes of her laughter, bell-clear, are still ringing in his ears. He knows, right there and then, that he wants to hear her laugh like that for the rest of his life.

Her eyes soften; in the almost-sunset light, they’re not as unfathomable, not as _old_ as they sometimes are. They’re the deep, warm colour of plum wine, edges lit gold by the sun, and the molten affection in them goes straight to the centre of his bones and warms him from within. “I simply thought,” she says, voice low and soft and just for the two of them, “that you might appreciate the fact that they’re back. That _we’re_ back. They’re your friends too, Ichigo. Never forget that if I have friends in the Gensei, you have them in the Seireitei as well.”

The warmth in his bones blooms into something larger than the both of them; they’re still locking gazes and he feels like he’s drowning in sunlight, so different to the drowning he’s been doing for the past seventeen months. His hands are still resting loosely on her feet; Rukia breaks away from their little bubble first, looking down at her now-laced skates and smirking. She shakes her feet and Ichigo jolts, withdrawing his hands from her as if burned.

“Bows? Really? That’s cute, Ichigo!” she says, and indeed, her skates are done up immaculately, double-knotted and finished off in perfect bows. Ichigo goes red and mutters something about demanding little sisters, and Rukia’s smirk grows wider. She jumps up and takes his hand again, drags him behind her in her excitement to get to the ice.

“C’mon, Ichigo, last one on the ice is a rotten grape~”

“It’s _egg_ , Rukia, it’s _egg_ , and wait, I still haven’t got my skates on yet—!”

 

*

 

They skate till nightfall, just like the last time. Thankfully, the shinigami behave themselves after the initial five minutes, which may or may not have something to do with Toshiro showing up late and threatening them all with paperwork for years. Said Captain was currently skating leisurely with his hands behind his back, Hinamori chattering beside him about childhood days spent on frozen rivers. Renji was as awful as Rukia had been seventeen months ago, and spent the majority of his time clinging to Ikkaku, who was equally as bad but was managing to stay upright by dint of how angrily he was skating; his skates left long gouge marks on the ice, and he was being given a wide berth by fellow skaters. Yumichika had been suspiciously perfect at the whole thing, until Rukia had pointed out the subtle light of kido along the bottom of his skates keeping him upright. Rangiku wasn’t half bad, but she seemed far more interested in ‘accidentally’ falling on top of poor Izuru (and complete strangers) and laughing at the results.

And Rukia? Well. Ichigo looks at the tiny shinigami skating circles round her friends, and tries to suppress a smile. She skates back to him with stars in her eyes, and he steadies her by grabbing her shoulders.

“Still haven’t got the hang of stopping on my own,” she laughs, breathless, and he quells the matching laughter that rises in his throat; he isn’t sure why he is like this. He doesn’t usually laugh so easily or smile without provocation, but something about her unfiltered joy is affecting him, too. “Well? How am I?”

He clears his throat. “Passable. At least I didn’t have to hold your hand the whole time like some kid.”

She elbows him in the ribs and he doubles over. “Fool! Not like I needed your help last time, too!”

“Oh yeah? I seem to remember a little differently,” he wheezes, holding onto his sides. He might’ve forgotten how lethal her knobbly little limbs can be, but he distinctly remembers the warm grasp of her hands in his. Not that he’ll tell her that.

“Your memory is faulty, then,” she declares, imperious, before turning her gaze to the trees that line the skating rink. They are bare, now, without a single leaf on any of them, but she hesitates, her eyes lingering over their stark form against the darkening sky.

“What?” he asks. She takes a while to reply.

“The—the cherry blossoms. Did you come to see them?” she asks, her back to his; her question is quiet but he doesn’t need to strain to hear her words at all. His heart beats too loud in his chest.

“Yeah,” he says, voice thick. An absurd question occurs to him, and before he can think it through, he’s asking her too: “Did you?”

A beat of silence. Then—

“Yes,” she breathes, turning to him; her face is shadowed but her eyes are clear, sprinkled with the light from the stars above them. “Once. In the spring. You weren’t here, and I was on a mission but I—I wanted to, anyway.”

He swallows. She doesn’t move and he’s still too but somehow they’re tending towards each other, like asymptotes afraid to meet the axis; what comes after when immutable laws of the universe are upended? She _here_ and he _there_ , so close when they should never have been; or is this, too, an immutable law of the universe? Were _they_ also just one of the many ways the world works, like gravity, like the seasons, like the cycle of life and death? She’s still staring at him with the world written into her expression and neither of them are moving towards each other, and yet, and yet—

Somehow, their faces are inches from the other’s when the sounds of a large explosion jolts them out of their mutual reverie; they look up to the sky just in time to see it lit up with fireworks, and then they’re swamped by everyone else, all carousing rowdily. Renji hooks an arm around Ichigo’s shoulder and almost brings the both of them down; Hinamori and Rangiku slip their arms through each of Rukia’s and natter at her about the fireworks, pointing out colours and shapes in the sky. Ikkaku and Yumichika circle them all, and Toshiro and Izuru hang back slightly, content to watch the noisy party as fireworks continue to rain down droplets of light above them. Ichigo and Rukia’s eyes meet through the fray, and they break into wide, matching smiles.

 _Next time,_ her eyes seem to promise him, and he’ll hold her to that; the night air is cold, but he feels heady and warm. He headlocks Renji into sprawling on the ice with him, and Rukia laughs at them both. The seventeen-month flood in his heart eases up.

Maybe next time they visit, it’ll be early spring; still cool enough for the rink but with the first vestiges of pink and green touching the trees. Maybe next time they visit, he’ll invite all his friends and she hers; maybe next time they visit, they won’t have that distinction. Tatsuki would get along well with Ikkaku and Renji; Inoue would be good friends with Hinamori and Mizuiro would probably enjoy Izuru’s company. Maybe next time they visit, the two worlds he’s living in—apparently so diametrically opposed—will have reconciled a little.

A tall order, he admits. But Rukia’s eyes, shining in the light of the moon, make him believe in stranger things happening.

Their hands, surreptitiously linked once more amid the din, is proof of that.  


	19. What the Future Holds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dead spinning in their graves is a real thing and now used to generate electricity. Your job is to come up with the best ideas to piss off the deceased in order to maximize energy production. How does the Bleach fandom contribute to this? Well…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there was a [writing prompt on tumblr](http://www.hashtagartistlife.tumblr.com/post/151091073499/writing-prompt-s-the-dead-spinning-in-their) that was like ‘The dead spinning in their graves is a real thing and now used to generate electricity. Your job is to come up with the best ideas to piss off the deceased in order to maximize energy production’ and because I’ll be salty about 686 in my grave I wrote this.

 

The idea catches on like wildfire. A hundred years into the future, people begin to write in lists of things that will piss them off into their will, seeing energy generation as a civic duty that they can contribute to long after their death. Dead bodies are buried no longer according to family relations, but according to what things will piss them off most in order for efficient insulting and subsequent synchronised turning in graves. Old grandmothers who get annoyed that someone would dare substitute butter with low-fat sunflower seed oil in their chiffon cake recipe. Plots of dead Republicans right next to a Democrat stronghold, and vice versa. Harry Potter fans in mass graveyards, having ‘DID YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN THE GOBLET OF FIYAH’ being played over them 24/7. The list is endless, and the world suffers no shortage of energy.

Amid such wildly energetic plots and creative insults, you encounter a graveyard of significant size, that is apparently generating an incredible amount of energy - but you can’t for the life of you figure out why the hell so many people would be enraged by what the insulter is calling out. You take the insulter aside and ask for the back story to the plot, how such a simple insult can cause so many people to turn in their graves - extremely energetically and indignantly, if the stats you see on the computer before you are any measure. The insulter shrugs.

“’Heard tell that this is a plot for fans of some manga. Blech? Bleach? I don’t really remember. What do you think I am, a historian? I just do the job, buddy.”

“Well, what is it exactly you’re calling out?” you ask, entirely intrigued. It’d been difficult to hear over the sounds of the electricity being generated, but you know the insult is dramatically short, only one or two words at most. “They can’t possibly all be insulted with something so short!

The insulter shrugs. “See for yourself,” he says, before turning back to the graveyard.

“686!” he calls out over the din, and, once again, everyone in the Bleach graveyard turn in their graves.


	20. One Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simple enough to ask, simple enough to answer, but not like Ichigo’s ever done anything the simple way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [deathberryprompts'](https://deathberryprompts.tumblr.com) weekly prompt, ‘graceful’. Not technically adultery, but it’s 686 compliant and Ichiruki. You have been warned.

“Daddy, do you love mommy?

A simple enough question, with what should have been a simple enough answer, but Ichigo’s words stick in his throat.

“O — of c—” the _of course_ tangles up on his tongue, refuses to make it past his teeth; Kazui looks at him with those guileless eyes inherited from his mother and Ichigo stalls for time. “What makes you ask that, all of a sudden?”

His son scowls (well, as much as those soft, open features of his will let him scowl, anyway) and looks down at his toes. “Ichika said — Ichika said her daddy tells her mommy he loves her every morning. She said her daddy hugs her mommy all the time, but she’s never seen you do the same.”

Kazui looks back up at him, and Ichigo feels his mouth go dry. “I— I know it’s silly, daddy, but — but still. You love mommy, right? Ichika’s wrong, right?”

 _Don’t you miss her?_ A similar question, a million years ago and a million miles away about a woman who couldn’t be more different to the subject of this question if they’d been heaven and earth; but once again, Ichigo finds himself reaching for the same response.

 _Of course I don’t miss her._ ”Of course I love her,” he replies, and Kazui lights up; he gives Ichigo a gap-toothed grin and runs away, satisfied. But left alone, smiling bitterly to himself, Ichigo knows the truth; a heavy thing that bows his shoulders more and more with every passing year.

He has never been a graceful liar under pressure, after all.


	21. Trust Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hollow lies. Don't trust a word he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt + pairing meme. The prompt was “Don’t trust me”. Not technically adultery, but it’s 686 compliant and Ichiruki. You have been warned.

 

“Don’t trust me.”

Three words in a frantic voice as his reiatsu flickers around the edges like static through an old TV, as his eyes blur over sulphurous yellow and gold. The grip of his fingers in her shoulders are tight enough to bruise. “Don’t trust me, don’t trust anything I say to you in the next however long it takes me to get back control, don’t—”

He cuts off, clutching at his head, and Rukia falls to her knees with him. “Ichigo, fight it, _fight it,_ you beat him once, you can beat him a—”

Her encouragements are interrupted by a chokehold to her throat. “Hello, your highness,” Ichigo hisses, only it’s not _him_ anymore; his skin and hair bleeds through with bone white and the sinister grin that curls his lips is a dark slash of blue. “Miss me?”

“Hollow,” Rukia gasps, then chokes as the hand around her neck tightens.

 _“Zangetsu,”_ he snarls, pressing her into the wall. “Or Ichigo, really, because _the blade is me_ and all that crap. He tell you not to trust me? The King, see, he lies, he _can_ lie. But me? I couldn’t lie to you even if I wanted to. What sort of horse lies to the Queen?”

“Stop calling me that,” she snaps, trying to put heat behind her words, but it’s hard when she can’t get enough air into her lungs. “I’m not your Queen. I’ve never been your—”

“Wrong.” the pressure against her throat disappears, but before she can regain her legs, he’s caging her in with his body. “You’ve _always_ been the Queen. Add that to the list of things the King never saw fit to tell you—”

“Ichigo’s _married—”_

“So are you. Marriage does not royalty make, Rukia. Would you like me to tell you some other things he’s never said? I miss you. I want you. I dream about fucking you into the mattress at night when I’m lying awake next to my _wife—”_

_“Stop—”_

“—I wish things didn’t have to be this way. I want to throttle Renji every time he so much as lays a finger on you. I _lov—”_

_“Stop!”_

Two voices shouting in unison, one rough and cracked, the other thinner and higher and almost hysteric; Rukia cracks an eye open to see Ichigo’s face inches from hers, distorted with pain but back to its usual colouring. Distantly, she registers there are tears on her cheeks.

“I— Ichigo?” she asks, and he drops her like she’s hot coals; she leans against the wall for support and manages to stay standing. “Ichi—”

“Told you not to trust me,” he says, and when he smiles at her, the expression is indescribably bitter. “What I said just then— what _he_ said just then— he lies, Rukia. None of it’s true. Don’t believe a word of it.”

It takes her a while to find her voice again. “Of— of course,” she replies, trying to inject some of her old bravado into her words. “As— as if I would have—”

“Good,” he says, and turns his back on her without a second glance; Rukia’s left staring at his retreating figure, hearing the echo of his words in her head.

_Don’t trust me, Rukia. Don’t believe a word he says._

_I miss you. I want you. I lov—_

“Too late,” she breathes, into the silence that he leaves behind. “Too late.”


	22. Stay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone is just a little bit terrible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt + pairing meme. The prompt was “You don’t have to stay”. 686 compliant Ichiruki, adultery. You have been warned.

 

“You don’t have to stay.”

Moonlight spills across the sheets like liquid silver. From the dark side of the bed, Rukia’s eyes trace over Ichigo’s silhouette, limned by the dim white glow from the windows.

“What if I want to stay?”

She laughs, short and mirthless. “Allow me to rephrase. You _shouldn’t_ stay.”

“Have I ever cared about what I should and shouldn’t do?”

Rukia’s eyes turn hard.

“You’re being deliberately dense.”

“And you’re being deliberately vague.”

“What part of ‘you shouldn’t stay’ was vague, Ichigo?”

He sits up in the bed. “Are you trying to tell me to _leave?_ Because that’s worked out so well for us in the past.” He snorts, and makes to pull her closer to him. She swats his hand away, at the air between them cools rapidly. “Rukia, what—”

“What are we doing, Ichigo?” she asks him, and there’s nothing soft or hesitant about the question. “Really, what are we doing?”

Ichigo stares at her stupidly for a while before answering. “Fucking?” he suggests, gesturing to the bed in disarray around them.

“We’re married to different people.”

“Has it stopped us before?”

“It should have.” She gets up, and he doesn’t try to stop her. She starts gathering the clothes that have been thrown all around the room in their haste. “Does it occur to you that what we’re doing is really, egregiously _wrong—”_

“Do you think I got into this without realising that?” She starts pulling her underwear on, and he grabs her by the shoulder, turns her around roughly. “What’s gotten into you—”

Rukia smiles, dangerous and thin. “Oh, I don’t know. A sense of morality—”

 _“Fuck_ you—”

“Not anymore,” she replies, and that’s that; Ichigo drops his hand from her shoulder.

“Rukia, what—” he whispers, and all of a sudden he’s fifteen again and seeing her being taken from him, lying in a pool of his own blood and rain, helpless to stop her. “Why—”

She pulls her dress over her head, smooths it out; her back is to him, so he can’t see her expression.

“I just,” she breathes, “can’t stay any more, that’s all.”

_“Rukia—”_

“Ichigo.” When she looks back at him, her expression is soft. “Goodbye.”

He lunges for her, but she’s gone.

 

*

 

_“You don’t have to stay, you know.”_

_She freezes, her spoon halfway to her mouth. “Hmm?”_

_Renji scratches his head. “I— fuck, Rukia, how do I even bring this up? Look, this— us. This thing that we’re doing. It’s clearly not working, and you don’t have to—”_

_Panic rises in her throat and blots out the rest of his words. “Renji, what are you saying? Why are you saying this—”_

_He looks at her evenly. “Did you think I wouldn’t know?” is all he says._

_The shame and guilt she always manages to keep at bay crashes over her; the room spins and the next thing she’s aware of is Renji’s arms around hers, keeping her upright. “Rukia. Rukia! You alright?”_

_“Fine,” she says faintly, before grasping onto the threads of their previous conversation. “Renji, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”_

_He sighs, long and deep. “Look, I didn’t bring this up for an apology. I just— I want you to know you have the option, ok? I don’t want you to— to feel tied to me or anything—”_

_He doesn’t understand. Rukia wants to cry as she remembers a sibilant voice, telling her and Ichigo that their loved ones will pay for any scrap of happiness they manage to find together. She can’t leave Renji, and Ichigo can’t leave Orihime, because if there’s nothing tying them down to this life then they won’t be able to stop themselves. They’ve been toeing the line as it is, dangerous moments of pleasure snatched in each other’s arms— that will have to stop today. How could they have been so stupid—_

_“No, no, Renji I’m so sorry, I promise, it won’t happen again, I’m sorry—”_

_She’s almost hysterical in his arms, and Renji can tell; he just holds her, letting her get it out of her system, before he asks her a single, pertinent question:_

_“Why?”_

_She swallows the sobs rising in her throat and casts about for an excuse he will accept. She settles on a half-truth: “I don’t want to do this to Ichika.”_

_Renji bows his head; he could respect that. He loves his daughter more than anything else on the earth, and Rukia knows she’s using that. But she’s already using him anyway, been using him as a restraint on herself for the past ten years; what’s one more deception added to the mix?_

_“Alright,” he breathes, and places a hand on her head, “alright, Rukia, we’ll try this one more time.”_

_One more time, he said; she can’t fuck this up any more._

_This ends tonight._

 

*

 

When Ichigo makes it back to his house, all the lights are off; he only senses one presence, his wife, sitting in the kitchen. He wonders briefly, detached, where his son is, before he remembers he’s off with Ichika at Tatsuki’s tonight. He walks past Orihime on his way to the bedroom, and her soft voice stops him in his tracks.

“You don’t have to stay, you know, Ichigo,” she says, and he turns to her slowly.

“What do you mean?” he asks, but he’s not curious for the answer— not really. He’s not sure if he’ll ever be able to feel anything except in his memories again.

She smiles that soft, sad smile that she’s worn for the entire ten years of their courtship. “I’ve known for a while now. Maybe even from the start. Ichigo— you know I love you, but— you don’t have to stay. Not for me. Not anymore— I understand, ok? I get it. It… took me a while to come to terms with it, but I can— I can finally do it.” There’s something a touch lighter in her expression as she says the next few words, but all Ichigo can feel is a heavy sinking feeling pulling his bones down to the earth. “I can finally let you go.”

He laughs. He can’t help it; he laughs out loud, shattering the silence permeating the little clinic. He laughs so long he thinks he might have verged over into crying, doubled over with his hands on his knees, tears in his eyes. He wheezes for breath, Yhwach’s words and Rukia’s ringing in his ears: everyone will pay dearly for your happiness. Ichigo, _goodbye._ Orihime watches him, at first nonplussed, then something in her gaze edging over into fear, and still he laughs, sinking lower and lower till he’s on his hands and knees on the floor. When she finally breaks and asks him, _what’s wrong, Ichigo, what’s the matter,_ he looks straight at her and says—

“No, Orihime. I _do_ have to stay.”


	23. Listen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The only time she has ever felt she could be a proper mother to Ichika was when Ichigo was around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt + pairing meme. The prompt was “Don’t listen to them. Don’t you EVER listen to them.” Not technically adultery, but it’s 686 compliant and Ichiruki. You have been warned.

 

A helpful cadet had alerted her to the commotion, but by the time Rukia gets out to the site of the scuffle, she finds it’s been all but sorted out. Several shinigami-in-training in academy uniforms, most of them with some form of bruise or graze visible on their skin, stand around looking shamefaced; a small ring of spectators begin dispersing (helped along by the Captain’s haori on her shoulders), and Ichika is there, looking a little rough around the edges but no worse for wear. Rukia’s eyes slide over the cadets, to her daughter, to the man leaning over her daughter talking to her in low tones, and finally settles on his hair— bright orange. She shooes the remaining spectators away and hurries over to the two of them.

“But they said—” her daughter is saying, and Ichigo cuts her off firmly but gently.

“Don’t listen to them. Don’t you _ever_ listen to them,” he tells her, voice fierce with protectiveness, and Rukia feels something in her chest _twist_ and ache. “You know they’re just trying to get a rise out of you, Ichika, don’t give them the satisfaction—”

“But they brought up _mom_ —” Ichika starts saying, before noticing her and cutting off; Ichigo looks over his shoulder and raises a hand in greeting.

“Rukia. Who told you?”

“Atsuko,” she replies quietly, naming the cadet that had run to her the moment the fight had started. “Remind me to thank her later on.”

“No need, I’ll make sure to pass it on,” Ichigo says, and Rukia nods. She turns to Ichika.

“What happened?”

Ichika looks at the ground and shakes her head, clearly unwilling to tell her. This isn’t new behaviour from her daughter, but the rejection never stops hurting. Rukia bites back a sharp reprimand. “Ichika, sweetheart. I’m not trying to scold you. As your mother, I’d like to know what happened to you.”

Her daughter shakes her head again, and Rukia closes her eyes in defeat. It was always this way with her daughter. She could never get through to her. Not the way Renji could; and even Renji couldn’t ever quite make Ichika open up to _her._ The only person that ever made her feel like she could be an adequate mother to Ichika was—

“Ichika.” Ichigo kneels in the grass beside her, so that he’s eye-to-eye with her daughter. “It’s ok to tell your mom about these things. It’s not your fault. She won’t think any less of your for it.”

“That’s not it,” Ichika says, plaintive, looking at Ichigo. “They— they said—”

“Tell your mother,” Ichigo says, gentle, “she’ll want to know.”

Ichika swallows, before turning those violet eyes up to Rukia. Ichigo gestures at her, and Rukia crouches down to a level with him, taking Ichika’s hands in hers.

“They— they said— that because you’re adopted into the Kuchiki family, you’re not _real_ Kuchiki, and— and they said that’s why _I’m_ not Kuchiki as well. They— they said— mama, are you _ashamed_ of me?” Ichika bursts into tears then, and reaches out for her mother; taken aback, it takes Rukia a little while to enfold her in her embrace. Her daughter hadn’t reached out to her in years— not since she’d been very, very little.

“Darling, _no—_ whatever made you think that—”

“I— is that why I’m not Kuchiki, mama? I— I’m sorry for fighting again when you told me not to, you— you’ll be disappointed with me again, mama, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I didn’t mean to—”

“Ichika—”

Rukia’s at a complete loss for what to do; she looks frantically at Ichigo over Ichika’s head as she pats her daughter on the back. Ichigo shakes his head fractionally, and Rukia smothers an urge to hit him; but that's being unfair. Ichika isn't _his_ daughter. She bites her lip and turns back to Ichika. “Sweetheart— Ichika, darling, listen to me. I could never, ever be ashamed of you— don't listen to what anyone else has to say, you hear? _I'm_ your mother and I’m telling you, you are the best thing that's ever happened to me—”

She doesn't know if what she's saying is even believable, but eventually, Ichika calms down; Rukia sends her back to classes and she goes with a tremulous smile.

Rukia straightens up tiredly, and notices Ichigo has been there the whole time.

“Thank you,” she tells him, and the phrase holds volumes. “What are you doing here?”

“Guest teaching a sword sparring class,” he says quietly. That explains why he was at the Academy. “Saw Ichika beating up some noble clan boys on my way out, much bigger and older than her. Figured I should help.”

“You didn't beat them up for her, did you?” Rukia asks in sudden horror; Ichigo looks down at her, inordinately offended.

“No! What the hell, Rukia? I broke them up and sent them to the Fourth, after giving them a talking to. None of them managed to get a single blow on Ichika, though.” A note of what is almost pride creeps into his voice, and there it is again, that twist and ache in her chest. Rukia looks away.

“Of course. I— I'm sorry. It was just the way you phrased it…”

He's silent a short while before he mumbles something, and Rukia has to ask him to repeat it. “I’m sorry?”

He clears his throat. “Wanted to, though,” he mutters, voice dark. “Help her beat ‘em up. For daring to lay hands on her. For talking about her that way.” He looks at her. “For talking about you that way.”

She inhales a sharp breath. “Ichigo…”

“Rukia—” he starts saying, before he catches himself; there was no-one around them now, but they were still on Academy grounds, where students had precious little diversions during the day but prying and gossip. He changes tack. “I— I should go.”

 _Stay._ “Yes, you should,” she says, and turns in the direction of the Sixth Division barracks. “Orihime and Kazui are probably waiting for you.”

Orihime and Kazui, who are his family; not she and Ichika. She chants their names like a mantra as she walks away, leaving Ichigo far behind her. Ichigo belonged to them, not her. Ichigo was Kazui’s father, not Ichika’s.

But some days, she can’t help but wish things were otherwise.

 

* * *

 

 

**A note, to try to explain what I was attempting with this fic: honestly, even writing this note feels like a cop-out :’D I’m of the opinion that if your fic is trying to do something and you need to append an explanation to it, it means you’ve kinda failed, y’know? But anyway. I try to explore a new facet or make a new point about Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship with every new fic and drabble I write about them, and this one isn’t an exception. I actually don’t mind the 686 kids; given my penchant for post-686 fic, I like using them as what they are. A convenient plot device that adds extra layers (usually of the angst flavour) to the Ichiruki dynamic. With this fic, I wanted to try to express some of my post-686 headcanons to do with how Ichigo and Rukia engage with their kids.**

**Honestly? In my head, Ichigo is a natural father - how can he not be, with what we see of him and Nel? How can he not be, with his own dad the way he is (off his rocker 6 days out of 7) and with two younger sisters to look after? - but Rukia is far from a natural mother. This was my headcanon even BEFORE 686 happened, but 686 just reinforced it like 10000 times. I feel like Rukia would feel inadequate as a mother, that she thinks she doesn’t know how to BE a mother. After all, what role models has she had in her life? She was abandoned in the Rukongai as a baby, and it’s not like when Byakuya adopted her she finally had a loving, functional family. She’s never really had a mother figure (and yes, I know Fade to Black shows her as a gr9 mother figure but…. FTB ain’t technically canon), and given how insecure Rukia tends to be about herself… I feel like she would have NO IDEA how to cope with a kid, unless given immense amounts of support. (We’re going to see hints of this insecurity come through in my IR comic Strawberry Peach Parfait, too!)**

**Now bear in mind that this does not at all translate to me thinking Rukia would be a terrible mother; she wouldn’t. Over my dead fucking body. I do, however, think that how Rukia ends up as a parent would depend a lot on her partner. Obviously, if she’d ended up with Ichigo, I feel like the fact that he’s such a natural father would have helped her immensely. And it’s so easy for them to fall into a perfect partnership, so she’d settle into motherhood just as easily as he settles into fatherhood.**

**Renji, on the other hand……. honestly, I don’t think he’s COMPLETELY TERRIBLE for Rukia, I’m quite alright with Renruki, but if we bring Rukia’s crippling insecurity back into play (a thing which he canonically couldn’t help her with) and throw a baby into the mix….. well.**

**Look, I don’t think Renji is a bad father. I think Renji adores Ichika. I think Renji is a good father for Ichika, but in a completely different way to Ichigo. I feel like…. Renji’s the kind of dad who’s just, like, completely 100% at the level of the kid, and is the kid’s friend more than the kid’s dad, y’know? Not that Ichigo isn’t great at connecting with the kids at their level, it’s just…. argh. Renji’s parenting is more like, literally just approaching the kid as a new friend, and Rukia can’t really model her own parenting off it because??? She can’t connect with the kid like he can??? Renji’s parenting is literally just a one-on-one between him and the kid so Rukia has no space to join in, to follow and copy and learn from him. And I hc that Rukia gets a bit of postnatal depression straight after having Ichika, and Renji………canonically can’t get through to her. So, I think Rukia ends up feeling super isolated while Renji and Ichika are sort of, off in their own little world.**

**Part of it has to do with how SIMILAR (at least, in my hc’s) Ichika is to Rukia. Now, Renji gets along gr9 with Rukia, so he has zero problems getting along with Ichika. Ichigo also gets along gr9 with Rukia, so he has zero problems getting along with Ichika. Rukia…… canonically did not get along gr9 with herself. :’D Add this to the fact that, in my mind, Rukia sort of… struggled with postnatal depression for the first few months to years after having Ichika, by the time she feels ready to try and reconnect with the kid, they’re just… too distant and Rukia’s way too lost as to how to go about it. Of course, she loves the kid, she does, and she’d REALLY like to be a proper mother for her… she just thinks she doesn’t know how.**

**Ichika’s a complete daddy’s girl in my head. She and Renji are virtually inseparable, but it’s her mother she looks up to, her mother she wants approval from. Her mother’s a Captain, her mother’s a Kuchiki, her mother’s a veteran of the Winter War AND the Thousand Year Blood War, everybody in the Seireitei knows her mother. Her mother’s so beautiful and strong. She’s everything Ichika wants to be. But she also finds her mother difficult (because Rukia herself, despite wanting to be closer to her daughter, finds her daughter difficult), so Ichika and Rukia are sort of like… stuck in this permanent impasse of both wanting to be closer to each other and not being able to bridge that gap.**

**Enter Ichigo, who’s always managed to bridge Rukia’s gaps with people. When they’re around Ichigo, it’s so easy for Rukia to interact with her daughter; when they’re around Ichigo, Ichika feels like it’s ok to not be perfect in every single way for her mother. Rukia only feels like she can be a proper mother to Ichika when she’s with Ichigo, and ofc, this also makes her feel terribly guilty.**

**Where does Ichigo stand in all of this? Here’s the thing: despite me thinking Ichigo would be a natural father, I don’t think he quite hits it off with Kazui. Ichigo would be a natural father, yes, but he doesn’t settle into a natural partnership with Orihime. And Orihime, whatever her other faults, I hc to be a FIERCELY DEVOTED mother. Orihime loves Kazui so much, takes care of Kazui so completely, that Ichigo feels kinda…. edged out. Unneeded, almost. Kazui’s a complete mama’s boy, completely like Orihime in demeanour, and while Ichigo’s a good dad to Kazui, I feel like there’s this sort of…. distance between the two. Kazui really looks up to his dad (like hero-worship, almost), and Ichigo… loves his son. He really does. It’s just that, with Orihime doing such a great job at anticipating everything Kazui needs, does he really need to be there at all? He’s probably just…. detracting from her parenting, isn’t he?**

**Ichika, though. Ichika’s so wild and rambunctious enough to be three kids by herself, and whenever Ichigo’s looking after Ichika he finally feels like he’s actually doing something relevant for the kid. Ichika pesters him for sword techniques and fighting tips and Ichigo…. may or may not love her as much as (if not more– but he pushes this thought down) his own son. (Because really, how could he NOT love someone that’s part Rukia? It’s hardwired into him to love everything Rukia, everything– including her kids. Even if they’re not with him.)**

**So basically, that’s how things stand currently. Ichigo and Rukia feel more like a family unit with each other and Ichika than they do with their families, for the convoluted reasons I listed above. Angst ensues.**


	24. and every breath we drew was -

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rukia skips out on a trip to the zoo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for deathberryprompt’s weekly prompt, ‘anger’. This is a snippet from a larger continuity I’ve dubbed ‘angry Ichigo au’. I may write more drabbles in this continuity. It’s 686-compliant nsfw Ichiruki adultery. You have been warned.

 

She forgets to lock the door behind her. _Mistake._ Her first for the day, but not her last by far.

Halfway through her shower, _he_ stalks in, the sound of the bathroom door opening ominous in the tiled space. _He_ makes sure to latch it shut, thorough to the last. They’ve seen each other in worse situations before (they’ve _done_ worse before), but she still can’t suppress the instinct to cover up.

He raises an eyebrow at her as he shucks his clothes.

“What are you doing, Ichigo?” she says. Her voice is remarkably steady, given the scenario.

“Taking a shower.” His pants drop to the floor. She fights the blush rising to her cheeks.

“The bathroom’s occupied.” She steels herself as he steps into the shower. He crowds her in the small space, but she refuses to give him ground—at least until he invades her personal bubble, and she’s forced to retreat to the wall if she doesn’t want intimate contact with him. It’s no use. He steps up with her, and her back hits the cold tiles. He presses in closer, a leg between hers, and bends his head to her neck.

“Need I remind you,” he breathes into her skin, and she shudders— “that this is _my_ house, Rukia?”

She makes a weak noise of protest, but doesn’t throw him off; her hands ball into fists beside her. His lips find her pulse, _dragging_ across sensitive skin—he knows her weaknesses—and she arches into him involuntarily.

“And you still owe me,” he says, voice slipping like silk over her senses, dripping like honey into her ear— “months”— his fingers brush her nipple— “and _months_ ”—his other hand finds her entrance, and pushes in— “of rent.” He curls a finger inside her, and the resultant spark of electricity pulls her body bow-taut. Stars explode behind her eyes. It’s always like this with him—always potent and uncontrollable and bigger than the two of them, blinding in its intensity, overshadowing everything else. She chokes back a sob.

“But I could overlook it,” he whispers, his fingers pumping slowly in and out of her, and Rukia fights to maintain a grip on the situation to no avail— “for a price.” He bites down on the curve of her neck, then, and her knees give out under her; she’s kept upright only by the pressure of his body against hers. He feels her give, and sucks on the skin there; she knows it’s going to leave a mark, and she can feel his smirk against her flesh.

“Why—“ she pants, but she’s already pulling him harder against her, her lips seeking his— “are you _like_ this?”

He stops short for a second, his lips frustratingly out of reach, scrutinising her with unreadable eyes before he smirks. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” he taunts, eluding her attempts at a kiss easily. “Maybe I just like being able to have a shower whenever I damn well want.”

His hand – the one not currently occupied with viciously unravelling her—finds her jaw, and he tilts her head up forcefully before crashing his lips down onto hers. He pushes his tongue into her mouth, and Rukia tastes blood.

“Ichigo, that’s—“ she starts, before he claps a hand over her mouth and her eyes go wide as saucers at the voice from just beyond the bathroom door.

“Yo, Rukia, you almost done?” Renji asks, and Rukia tries frantically to push Ichigo off her, but he doesn’t budge an inch. “We’re gonna be late at this rate, the zoo closes at four—“

“Tell him you’re gonna skip out on this trip,” Ichigo breathes in her ear, before dropping to his knees before her and licking straight up her centre. She shoves a fist into her mouth to prevent the high keening sound at the tip of her tongue from escaping. He grips her hips then, fingers digging into her, before starting in earnest; if she wasn’t braced up against the wall, Rukia knows she would be a puddle on the floor.

There’s an impatient rap at the door. “Rukia?”

“Yes!” she squeaks, wincing at the pitch of her own voice; she tries to bring it down to a more normal level but it’s difficult when Ichigo’s flexing his tongue like that, soft and hot and wet around her clit—“I—I’m fine, Renji, I just—” she cuts off sharply as he adds a finger into her, her head knocking back into the tiled wall. Her ruined moan comes out in half-breaths, barely audible behind the sound of the running water. “I—just—”

Ichigo’s gaze on her burns; his mouth and tongue slow but there’s no loss in intensity. If anything, the unbearable heat _increases_ ; he adds a second finger and he sucks lightly, the pressure driving her up higher and higher towards the peak. She shoves her fist in her mouth again and bites down. “I just—”

“Rukia—” Renji says, just as the fingers inside her _twists_ and she lets out a sharp gasp.

Her eyes fly open; she looks to the door in horror but thankfully Renji seems oblivious, prattling on like he heard nothing. “—to go soon, and—”

“Go on without me!” she manages to get out, in a rush before Ichigo ups the ante, dialling the pace up a notch. She needs to get Renji away _now._ “I—I’m feeling really tired—”

There’s a pause. “You sure?”

 _“Yes!”_ she says, and she’s not sure whether she’s speaking to Renji or Ichigo; the latter pauses just long enough in his ministrations to shoot her a smug look before he dives back in with a vengeance. “I’m fine, you all go—“

“S’pose if you’re sure, then,” comes the voice, before she hears his retreating footsteps and she lets out a quiet groan. Thank god, thank god—

He doesn’t leave her much time to be relieved; as soon as the last of Renji’s footsteps fade away he pushes her against the wall harder, his lips and tongue and teeth working in tandem to wind her tighter and tighter. The coil in her belly explodes in seconds, and she’s spasming around his demanding fingers; he straightens up to his full height without withdrawing from her and swallows her moans on his tongue. Before the aftershocks of her orgasm dissipate entirely, he shifts her up higher on the wall and slides home.

He correctly interprets the tears gathering on her lashes as he fucks her, and he leans in to whisper in her ear: “I’ll take you another time.”

God, she hates how he does that, how even when they’ve both sunk this low he knows her this well; it’s not the fucking zoo, and he knows it, but they’re both pretending that that’s what it was, anyway. She can’t believe they’ve ended up _here_ , again, today of all days – she was a terrible excuse for a mother, Ichika had been so excited to go – and she knows, with an awful certainty, that they will end up here in the future, too. They were too entwined _not_ to.

“It’s not—the damn zoo—” she snaps out, in between his sinuous hips, rolling and cresting like waves. He ignores her and instead drops his lips to the hollow at her throat; his lips and tongue skate across her collarbone, gentle in the way that his grip on her hips is not.

“I’ll take you another time,” he murmurs, and his thumb finds her clit— “just the two of us. You and I. No Renji, no Orihime, no kids—”

“—Stop,” she tells him, because the threat of the tears spilling is becoming more and more real with every new word out of his mouth, “Ichigo, just _stop_ —”

“Just you and I, _all day long_ —”

“Ichigo, _stop it_ —”

“We can even hold hands, if you want. Would you like that, Rukia?”

A choked moan rips from her throat; he bites down on a breast, before soothing the ache with his tongue.

She thinks she might hate him.

“Rukia, _Rukia_ , we could be together for a whole day—”

“Ichigo, _don’t_ —”

“I’ll take you out properly. We can go to the zoo—” _Thrust._ “Have lunch together outside—” _Thrust_. “I’ll take you out to dinner somewhere nice—” _Roll hips._ “And then afterwards...”

He trails off, and he makes the pause sound _obscene;_ the promise of _afterwards_ is more effective than any dirty innuendo he could have made. Rukia can feel her second orgasm building in her like the tides, waiting and waiting and waiting to rush through her at the last minute. She clutches onto his shoulders for dear life; she can feel him breathing heavy into her ear. “And then afterwards…”

His hips flex into her particularly hard; she bites down on his neck. Ichigo leans in _closer_ , tongue tracing the shell of her ear, and murmurs in a voice dark as velvet: “and afterwards, I’ll take you to a hotel and make love to you all night long… would you like that, Rukia?”

In lieu of an answer, she comes apart with a cry, her fingernails digging bloody crescents into his arms. Ichigo groans, too, the pain of her nails mixing with the heady pleasure of her constrictions around him and drawing his orgasm from him with a sharp moan. He cradles her in his arms as they both undulate against each other, riding their mutual high through to the end; when she slumps against him, the tremors wracking her getting weaker and weaker, he strokes her hair back from her temples and kisses her tears away, the salty taste on his tongue reminding him of the ocean.

After an age, she gulps in a shaky breath and disentangles herself from him; he lets her, now that the all-consuming need to have her has settled down into a more manageable burn. He grips her wrist to stop her from getting too far away, though, and thinks to bring her in for another kiss when—

She slaps him.

The _crack_ of her palm against his cheek echoes; he’s stunned for a second, his jaw (caught by the edge of her hand) throbbing viciously. She _meant_ to hurt him just then. She’s standing at the opposite end of the shower, his view obscured by the stream of water that still jets between them. She has, he belatedly notices, shampoo suds in her hair.

“You—” her voice is raspy, but not from lust as it had been a minute ago; her chest is heaving and her shoulders are trembling like leaves in a summer storm. _“Why—”_

He rubs his jaw slowly and shrugs. “You didn’t stop me,” he points out, and her eyes flare angrily for a moment before the fire in them dies, long and drawn-out. She turns her back on him and reaches for the towel.

“I shouldn’t have had to,” she chokes, her words catching on the tail end of a sob; he grabs her by the wrist gently and draws her against his chest, enveloping her small frame in his. She shakes violently in his arms, and he lets her tears run unchecked.

“At least wash the shampoo out of your hair, idiot,” he says softly, before leading her under the stream of water to brush his fingers through her hair, methodically working the chemicals out. She cries the entire time but once again does not stop him, letting him wash the shampoo out and then rub conditioner through, detangling the long strands. When he’s done, he sweeps her hair back and presses a kiss to her temple.

“You’re the _worst_ ,” she says, even as he turns the water off and wraps her up in a towel, “the absolute _worst_ —beyond redemption— _awful_ —”

“I know,” he breathes, as he towels her dry, periodically kissing her tears away, “I know.”


	25. Ritardando

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their eyes meet; wide with all the things they no longer have time for and wet with gathering precipitation. Storm clouds on the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [deathberryprompts'](https://deathberryprompts.tumblr.com) weekly prompt, 'vengeance'. Exactly 300 words.

When Ichigo reflects on his life up to this point, he finds he’s spent more of it in the rain than out. Oh, he’s sure that his infancy, at least, was a stretch of clear skies, but who the hell remembers anything before their fourth birthday, and then there had only been five years of his mother’s sunshine before rain had taken up permanent residence in his soulscape. Then, it is relentless for going on six years, and so Ichigo only has the faintest memory of a cloudless blue when one day, he looks up to a warm violet-edged smile and realises the rain has stopped.

The breath of fresh air after years of drowning is more wonderful than he can describe, but he doesn’t have time to relish how the colours in his life are just a little more vivid than before; there are wars to fight and fights to win and before he can properly appreciate the novelty of sun-warmed skin or dry hair, he’s standing on the street outside his house watching the moon grow paler and paler in the dawn sky.

“Tell everyone I said hi,” he says, and she laughs, soft and musical; he thinks there’s the promise of a storm in the way her voice wavers almost imperceptibly, the ominous snap of a pressure change and the distant rumbling of thunder on your tongue.

“Sure,” she replies, and then, all of a sudden, there is nothing more to say.

“Later, Rukia,” he breathes, and their eyes meet; wide with all the things they no longer have time for and wet with gathering precipitation. Storm clouds on the horizon. “Thank you.”

She fades away with the sunrise, with his powers, with everything else that has ever mattered—

And the rain is back, with a vengeance.


	26. Paradoxical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Across spacetime, across multiple universes, against all odds and scientific theorems, their bond is–

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for [deathberryprompts'](https://deathberryprompts.tumblr.com) weekly prompt, 'unbreakable'.

The small astrophysics major curls into her classic lit major boyfriend’s side. His cardigan is kind of scratchy, but he is warm and the night is cold. He doesn’t acknowledge her presence, but shifts his position so that he can continue reading his copy of _King Lear_ over her head. The astrophysics major lets out a content sigh.

“Did you know, Ichigo, we learned about parallel universes today.”

Ichigo doesn’t bat an eyelid. “Did you.”

“Mmhm. Made me think, there are theoretical universes out there where we didn’t get together. Doesn’t that feel weird?”

Ichigo half-sighs, half-laughs and puts his book down. “Were you going somewhere with this, Rukia?”

“Well, it’s kind of sad, isn’t it? I mean, we’re together in _this_ universe, but the scientific fact is that, in some other universe, we’re not together—”

He shuts her up with a kiss to her head. “Have you been worrying about this all day? Awwww. That’s uncharacteristically sweet of you—”

“Don’t think I miss that sarcasm there, mister, and _uncharacteristically?_ I’ll have you know I’m the darling of the astrophysics department—”

“Rukia.” Ichigo pulls her onto his lap, Shakespeare momentarily forgotten. “You know, science can logic out theorems for days on end about how parallel universes are a thing, and therefore theoretically every single possibility out there must exist somewhere, but _I_ like to believe that some bonds are unbreakable across spacetime. Science can’t account for everything in our lives, you know.”

Rukia does not answer him immediately. “You’re saying you think our bond is one of those things.”

He smirks. “Your literary analysis skills never fail to astound me.”

She laughs and whacks him with a pillow. “Shut up, you unscientific, sentimental, _sappy_ literature major.”

“Hey, you agreed to date this unscientific, sentimental, _sappy_ literature major. What’re you going to call that?”

The smile that curls her lips then is soft, much softer than the challenging one she usually wears for him. “I’d call that unbreakable.”

Ichigo returns her smile in kind. “Yeah, me too.”

 

*

 

In a different universe, they’re saying goodbye with tears in their eyes, black shihakushous fluttering on the wind, and all that’s left between them are the glittering shards of something that once seemed unbreakable.


	27. Big Brother is Knot Always Watching You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Kuchiki Clan, keepers of a forgetful history. Ichigo wants none of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, my friends and I were discussing the new renruki novel, and basically (spoiler alert for the novel) it tells us that squad zero wants the history books to lie about the Soul King dying in the Quincy War. So, as far as the history books (and anyone else who wasn't directly involved in the war) are concerned, the Soul King is still alive (spoiler alert: he isn't) and the Shinigami were 100% victorious and everything's all dandy and fine. Which, whatever - my friends and I were DYING laughing about the fact that THE NOVEL ADMITS THAT SOUL SOCIETY IS BASICALLY A REVISIONIST HISTORY DYSTOPIA NOW, but we didn't think too hard about this tidbit until I remembered:  
> Who keeps the history records for Soul Society?   
> Kuchiki clan.   
> Kuchiki. Clan.   
> As in, Rukia KUCHIKI'S CLAN  
> AS IN, IT IS NOW 100% POSSIBLE AND ENTIRELY TOO PLAUSIBLE THAT ICHIGO AND RUKIA HAD A MASSIVE FALLING-OUT ABOUT RUKIA'S FAMILY BEING TOLD TO RECORD A REVISIONIST HISTORY AND THAT'S WHY 686 HAPPENED. I'M SCREAMING, GUYS, I'M LITERALLY SCREAMING.   
> Anyway, for added angst to this scenario please imagine that Ichigo and Rukia got engaged before they had the fight about Soul Society changing the records. They hadn't got around to telling people but Rukia's wearing Masaki's ring. And then the orders came down to change the history books, and Ichigo realises that if he marries Rukia he's essentially marrying into revisionist history. Rukia…. wants to fight the orders, honestly, but I think one of Rukia's main flaws is that she trusts the system too much (oh, they're executing me for actually saving human lives? Maybe the system's fucked u–naaaaaaah they're totally correct I deserve to die), which stems from her lack of self-esteem (she just assumes that everyone is smarter, wiser, better than she is, so surely they can't be wrong?). Besides, she can't make a fuss about this, that will put nii-sama in an uncomfortable position, won't Ichigo see she can't do anything about this—

“–can’t go along with it, Byakuya will understand–”

“Nii-sama has enough on his plate, Ichigo! He’s in far too precarious a position because of me already, I can’t ask him to do more–”

Ichigo runs a hand through his hair; he’d been growing it out the past couple of years, and the unruly strands stubbornly refuse to stay out of his eyes. He takes a step closer to her, but Rukia stands her ground. 

“This isn’t about you or me or the goddamn Kuchiki clan  _honour_ , Rukia, this is straight up  _lying_  to everybody, and you know it–” 

“But does it  _matter?_ ” she asks desperately; if her tone is pleading, she tries to ignore it, just as she tries to ignore the aching of her heart and the corner of her mind that is screaming yes, yes of  _course_  it matters. “You and I know the truth, a whole bunch of other people know the truth, if new shinigami are not unnecessarily frightened with the idea of an enemy that they’ll never personally have to face is that truly all that  _bad_ –?”

_“This isn’t what I fought for!”_  Ichigo hisses, and god, Rukia knows, she  _knows_ ; but Ichigo hasn’t been in the Gotei all his life like she has, and he doesn’t understand that despite the occasional misstep, they are fundamentally working for the greater good. That they do what they do with everyone’s best interests at heart. And sure, she can’t see the wisdom in some decisions straight away, but surely, in the long run, this must turn out to be the correct decision? They’ve been to the Royal Realm, they’ve met the Zero Division; the Zero Division trained them. The Zero Division helped them. The shinigami maintain the balance of the universe– so surely any decisions they make must contribute to the overall harmony of the world? 

“Ichigo,” she says, and a part of herself hates her for it, “maybe there are some things you shouldn’t fight.” 

Ichigo’s eyes snap dangerously gold and hazel. 

“You are trying to write down a  _wrong_  history and sell it as gospel truth,” he snarls, and if this weren’t Ichigo,  _Ichigo,_  Rukia would be afraid. “You’re trying to lie to every single shinigami who comes after us– to our children, to their children– that we’ve never done a single thing wrong, ever. You’re trying to erase an entire race from the records–”

“Erase? Ichigo, there  _aren’t any of them left to erase!”_

The moment the words leave her lips, Rukia knows what she’s done; her hands clap over her mouth uselessly, as if to prevent the words from escaping. Ichigo’s face  _twists_  into an expression she’s never seen directed at her before, and Ishida flashes through her mind, straight and true. Like an arrow. 

The next thing that flashes through her mind is  _Ichigo._  

_“…I’m half-quincy, and my mom–”_

His mother’s ring, on her finger like a brand–

“Ichigo, I–”

“Forget it.” 

“Ichigo, I didn’t mean–”

“No, you did.” 

“Ichigo, I’m–”

“–sorry?” he laughs mirthlessly, and cold seeps through her skin, trickles down her spine. “Are you?” 

There’s a question in his eyes as important as the one he asked her two nights ago on a moonlit bed, the night she slid his ring onto her finger. There’s a question and a plea and a request that she abandon everything she knows, to turn her back on her family and friends, to throw her lot in with him entirely–

There’s a question in his eyes that she  _cannot answer._

Instead, she closes her eyes and tries one more time. “Ichigo,  _please–”_

“Rukia,” he breathes. “I  _can’t.”_

He is the one who walks away.

But why does it feel like she’s the one who’s abandoned him?

 

*

 

He never asks for the ring back, but Rukia takes it off anyway. She wraps it up in tissue paper, along with her heart, and stows it away in the back of her closet in the Kuchiki Manor. When the clan elders speak to her of marriage, she puts on a fake smile and tells them she is amenable. She breathes, she moves, she  _lives._ With or without him, the Seireitei continues on.

And when she hears, a few years later, that he’s married to Inoue Orihime, she realises– 

with or without her, the Gensei turns on too. 

 


	28. the difference between a funeral shroud and a wedding veil is intent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I did. I did. I do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for deathberryprompts' weekly prompt, 'paradise'. Mild spoilers for rr novel.

_I burned so long_

The fabric for the veil is a beautiful thing, gossamer-light in her hands. It couldn’t have been finer had it been woven by angels in paradise itself. Only the best for the lady of the Kuchiki House, after all; Rukia lets it run through her fingers and fall into a pile on the floor.

_So quiet_

“—of course, most people like to embellish it a little, Kuchiki-san. What do you think? I’ve got crystals, we can do a snowflake theme—”

_You must have wondered if I loved you back_

Ichigo stares holes into her from the corner of the room.

_I did_

“—or you like snowdrops, right? Maybe some around the edges in a silver thread—”

_I did_

She wets her lips. “Orihime—”

_I do._

“—please embroider strawberry flowers for me.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The italicized text in between is an excerpt from the poem 'The Pillowcase' by Annelyse Gelman.


	29. from eden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Innocence died screaming // honey ask me, I should know. // I slithered here from Eden // just to sit outside your door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for deathberryprompts’ weekly prompt, ‘queen’. Title and lyrics in the summary are taken from Hozier’s ‘From Eden’.

The next time Rukia sits _jinzen_ (the first time in a while), she is surprised to find that her zanpakutou spirit wears a crown of bone.

Not of ice, but bone. “Why this?” is the first thing she asks, reaching up to tap pensive fingers against the ornament; but before she can feel the brittle texture of it underneath her fingertips, Shirayuki intercepts her wrist with a grip like morning frost.

“He is coming,” she hisses, and Rukia jerks back as tendrils of ice snake their way up her arm. “He is coming, he is _coming—_ I cannot stop him, Rukia.”

“Stop who? _Who_ is coming?” Ice should not frighten her, not after all these years— but Rukia cannot help the rising panic as the ice grows over her shoulder, encases the side of her neck in a beautiful and deadly brace. She can feel frost forming on her eyelashes. “Shirayuki, _let go!”_

She does not; instead, the zanpakutou spirits pulls Rukia closer, so that her bloodless lips are right by Rukia’s ear. The ice starts flowering, bursts and sprays of petals with razor edges; and for the first time Rukia realises the fear of being buried alive, of being swallowed whole by her own ice and laid to rest amidst the pine trees of her soulscape.

“Rukia,” her sword whispers into her skin, “have you been dreaming lately?”

And then the ice shatters.

 

*

 

When Rukia opens her eyes, she’s back in her room. She is no stranger to being forcibly pushed out of her own mind, but this hasn’t happened to her in years. It _shouldn’t_ be happening to her now, not if she’s obtained bankai _;_ there should be no corners of her soul that catch her off-guard any more.

And yet—

She turns her head, to face the half-length mirror against her dresser; there, woven into the long strands of her hair, are the remnants of her bankai crown.

As she watches her reflection, the ice shards crumble and disappear; the only thing that lingers is a trace of a pitch-black reiatsu, like an afterthought of smoke on the wind.

 

*

 

Rukia doesn’t dream that night. Instead, she hears _laughter,_ skirting round the edges of her consciousness as she sinks and rises atop the tides of sleep. She thinks, maybe, that it sounds a little like Kaien; she thinks, maybe, that it might be tinged yellow and gold and bone-white. She’s never heard it before in her life.

She thinks, maybe, that it sounds _familiar._

 

*

 

Ichigo is the same as ever, hair cut short and clean-shaven, a carefully cultivated mildness across his features. She drops Ichika off at his place for her customary playdate with a customary greeting and smile, and Ichigo receives her with a customary nod and a customary enquiry after the state of the others. After the exchange, it’s time for her to leave; Ichika usually stays the night with the Kurosakis.

Something makes her hesitate. She catches the sleeve of Ichigo’s shirt as he says goodbye.

“Ichi— I mean, _Kurosaki_ —” his surname has never sat quite right against her tongue, not the way his first name did— “Do you— have you been— have you been _dreaming_ lately?”

He looks at her blankly. She uncurls her fingers from the fabric of his shirt, one at a time.

“No,” he tells her eventually. “I haven’t dreamt in over ten years, Ru— _Kuchiki.”_

The unsaid ‘since I’ve lost my powers’ is louder than a bell tolling; suddenly, Rukia can’t meet his eyes, can’t lift her head for the shame and guilt bowing her spine. Ichigo has never once been resentful, but that, perhaps, has been the most pointed protest of all.

In the back of her mind, snow stirs; white against thick black. Rukia lets Ichigo walk away.

 

*

 

_He is coming, Rukia. He is coming—_

**_Who_ ** _is coming?_

 

*

 

The second spike of unidentified reiatsu in ten years sends Soul Society into a frenzy, even more so than the first time. Yhwach had been absolutely, undeniably, _100%-for-real-this-time_ defeated; even Urahara had said so. After a lengthy examination of Kazui and Ichika both, not to mention a thorough investigation of the Quincy King’s corpse held in the Royal Realm, everybody had concluded that this time he was gone for good. The spike in reiatsu was simply the last vestiges of his power, making a final, futile stand.

So when the new spike of reiatsu bears an alarming resemblance to the reiatsu of their greatest enemy, Soul Society goes straight into wartime sanctions. A Captain’s meeting is called; the Lieutenants are sent to defend the borders of the Seireitei, to rally troops in preparation for any possibility. Rukia hastily bids Renji goodbye at the door as they go opposite directions. Ichika is safe at the Kuchiki Manor for now.

There is something rising in her, something restless and flighty; something that tugs on her stomach and makes her feet frantic as she runs through the Seireitei streets. If she could visit her soulscape today, she knows it would be storming. She feels like a livewire, static and ozone burning through her mind; she doesn’t understand _why._

There’s the taste of barely repressed thunder on her tongue as she enters the Captain-Commander’s barracks and assumes her position. She already knows what the meeting is about; word filters down relatively quickly throughout the Divisions these days. Twelfth Division is only a scant distance away from both Sixth and Thirteenth. She knows there’s a large body of unidentified reiatsu moving towards the Seireitei with alarming speed; at first, so faint that only the sensors could pick it up, but already it is close enough that she can feel it pressing along the seams of her consciousness with a lover’s insistence. Dense and heavy and somehow…. _sticky._ Rukia shakes her head and wills herself to ignore it, to focus on the Captain-Commander’s words.

But that’s easier said than done when the reiatsu gets denser and heavier with every passing half-second; it’s closer and _closer_ and close enough now that she can feel it as a physical presence, trying to weigh her down to her knees. If it’s this close already then this was no time to be standing around _discussing;_ could no-one else feel it? She opens her mouth to address the issue, but her tongue feels coated in tar. Nothing comes out from between her lips—

The doors blow off their hinges.

The man that steps out from between their wreckage is tall and familiar in all the wrong ways; bone white skin stretched over angled cheekbones and the jut of a stubborn jaw, spiky, unruly hair grown out long and black to the floor like an oil spill. Eyes with black sclera and gold irises, that once gleamed behind a mask striped with red. He wears the tattered remains of a Quincy uniform, and a sword as long as he is tall is strapped to his back.

The snowstorm in her mind sighs—

“I— chi— go—?”

The man turns to look at her, and smiles; the lazy curl of his lips is unfamiliar in all the right ways.  

“Close, sweetheart,” he rasps, and Rukia’s hand clenches around her sword out of pure instinct; “but no dice.” He turns to face the Captain-Commander, who by now has drawn Katen Kyokotsu; though neither of the men lose their easygoing smiles. The newcomer inclines his head.

“Well, I think it’s very clear by now that you _aren’t_ Ichigo-kun, no matter how much you may look like him,” Kyoraku says  lightly. He shifts his grip on Kyokotsu. “Who are you? What do you want?”

The thing-that-is-not-Ichigo throws his head back and _laughs;_ with a start, Rukia recognises the unbalanced, yellow-gold-bone tinted edge to the sound. She’d thought it had sounded like Kaien before. She sees now why she made that comparison.

It doesn’t sound like Kaien.

It sounds like a _hollow._

Not-Ichigo makes a show of wiping imaginary tears from his eyes. The entire room bar he and Rukia have drawn their swords now. Rukia knows it’s useless anyway; things are clicking into place. This man, he…

“Why, I’m the Soul King,” he says, and Rukia knows the next words out of his mouth before she hears them being uttered. He turns to her, and offers her his hand; there’s a bone crown upon his head, the same one that Shirayuki had worn. The leer he wears is terrifyingly sincere. “And as for what I want—”

_He is coming, he is coming—_

**_for you._ **

“I’m here for my _Queen.”_

 


	30. Phenotype

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How do you have to order your alleles, he wonders, to get that shade of heart-stopping blue—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for deathberryprompts’ weekly prompt, ‘blue’.

For the barest split second,

Ichigo thought that Kazui’s eyes looked blue. 

 

*

 

Ichika took after her father. That dark red hair, the confident smirk, the shape of her eyes; she couldn’t be more similar to Renji if she’d been cloned, a daddy’s girl through and through. The only trace of  _ Rukia _ in her, the only place where her mother could be seen, was the colour of her irises. 

The first time Ichigo saw Ichika, he’d thought her eyes were incredibly blue. The three-and-a-half year old’s eyes were an ocean kaleidoscope; shifting with the light to become the light blue of a morning sky to the dark blue-black of the sea at night. The kind of blue that couldn’t be defined with single words; the kind of blue that had always made him lose his head. 

Perhaps that was why the next words out of his mouth were words that couldn’t possibly be explained by any rational person with a functioning visual system. 

“She looks a lot like you.” 

Ichigo still remembered the way Rukia had looked up at him then: the corners of her eyes crinkled a little in confusion, that deep, deep blue colour burning itself into his consciousness. Straight through his soul. 

 

*

 

It had snowed the day that Kazui was born, too. 

Ichigo remembered waiting with slippery palms, Orihime’s screaming being cut off abruptly by the sounds of a baby crying. A nurse had called him into the delivery room and placed a baby in his arms without ceremony. His son was three days early, and much tinier than he could have ever expected; his eyes looked to be about half his face, and were tightly closed against the glare of the surgery lights. There were wispy strands of orange hair atop his  head, the exact same colour as his own. 

And then his son opened his eyes, and Ichigo couldn’t breathe. 

Blue. For the barest split second, Kazui’s eyes were  _ blue. _

“...chigo. Ichigo!” 

Orihime was calling for him. Ichigo shook his head; he smiled tentatively down at Orihime, who returned the gesture with a wide smile of her own. Keeping the grin firmly in place, he chanced another glance down at Kazui; and by now his son was blinking about the room with placid brown eyes, no trace of the piercing blue that had stopped his heart just seconds prior. He laughed on a shaky exhale, the sound ringing a little hollow. Of course. Of course Kazui’s eyes were brown— they had no reason to be any other colour. Why had he thought they’d be blue? Why had he seen  _ blue, _ of all colours—

(he knew why.) 

 

*

 

For the barest split second,

Ichigo had been looking for  _ Rukia’s  _ eyes in  _ his _ child. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was actually written and posted on tumblr several months ago, before the last update of cyclical (which was..... 6 months ago.... oops). I've just been so busy with uni and irl stuff that I've sort of.... neglected everything fandom. I'm trying to get back into the swing of things, especially ficwriting, but i'm just so busy that there are no guarantees. I promise not to just up and leave without, like, giving notice, though, so.... yeah. i'm not dead.


	31. The Body Electric

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rukia’s good at kido. Ichigo’s good at learning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally written for an old deathberryprompts, 'electric', but then I didn't finish on time so it was going to be for the first day of irmonth, 'missing scene/episode tag', but then I didn't finish it on time for that either, and now I don't really know what it is, now. But it's been a while since i've posted anything new and i just, need to stop tinkering with this and just get it OUT of my WIP folder. so, here it is.

Rukia’s good with kido. Ichigo hadn’t managed to appreciate it on that first night, when he broke through her bakudo with sheer force of will, but it soon becomes evident just how fine her control over this nebulous subject is. Even with most of her powers gone and only dregs remaining, she manages to hold her own against lower-class hollows, hurling blue fire and binding them with nets of light. Ichigo loses count of how many times she saves him from his own incompetence by way of a cleverly placed chant or two, how many times she spares him from the pain of a rake across his shoulder or a broken bone. 

She’s good at both attacking and restraining, but to his surprise, she’s most proficient at healing; her bedside manner leaves a little to be desired, but the touch of her fingertips on broken skin is always gentle, and the pure focus she directs at the wounds leaves him tingling, like he’s got electric currents running through his veins. If he is a little less vigilant than he should be, knowing that any injuries he sustains will be subject to her lithe fingers sweeping over them, well— he doesn’t like to admit it, not even to himself.  

It doesn’t take long for that kind of carelessness to backfire, though, and one night he’s sitting on a random rooftop, Rukia hissing with worry. The front of his shihakushou is drenched with blood, and her face is tight as she peels the wet cloth off his torso. He winces as shreds of skin come away with his clothes, and Rukia snaps at him. 

“I told you to be more careful, fool, you almost got yourself  _ killed _ —” 

“But I didn’t, so would you quit nagging—  _ SHIT,  _ Rukia, that  _ hurt—” _

“You deserved it,” she says, but there’s a distinct lack of bite in her tone; Ichigo rubs the back of his head, still throbbing where Rukia’d whacked him, and stays silent as she sucks in a breath at the extent of the damage. He’s rather impressed himself; his entire front felt like it was on fire, sure, but he hadn’t expected it to look like it’d been put through a shredder. He grits his teeth as Rukia lays her hands over the wound and gets to work.

The first spark of her power into him is always startling; fresh and cool, like a winter morning. Then, a low, continuous stream, fluctuating occasionally, like the comforting hum of the refrigerator in the middle of the night. Ichigo loves watching her like this; it’s the only other time, apart from when she’s asleep, that he can stare at her freely and not expect an elbow into the softer parts of his body. She’s all sharp concentration—fierce eyes and precise hands—and Ichigo lets a long, shallow breath go as the kido starts knitting him back together. 

It takes longer than it usually does for him to heal to an acceptable extent, but then again, he'd taken more damage than usual, too. By the time she’s done, Rukia looks pale and wan. Ichigo grabs her arm before she can stumble off the roof and she jerks away from him with a cry of pain. 

“You fool, what do you think you're—”

He lets go of her hastily. “Are you— are you  _ hurt—” _

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she says, but her words don’t match her actions; she’s cradling her arm into her chest, keepings its weight off the shoulder joint. He thinks, exasperated, how it is  _ just like her _ to tell him not to be ridiculous when  _ she _ is the one being a moron. His mouth takes on a grim set and he gestures to the roof tiles. 

“Sit. You can’t go to school tomorrow in that state. You should heal it before we go back.” 

She glares at him a moment before responding. “I don’t have any power left. Some  _ fool _ got more injured than usual so there’s nothing I can do about  _ this,” _ she indicates her shoulder with her chin, “Until tomorrow afternoon, at the very least.” 

That takes him aback for a second or two; surprise then guilt washes over him, thick and acute. He hadn’t anticipated _ this _ as a consequence for his lack of vigilance. That Rukia will be in pain because of him—

A thought stops him. “If— if it’s power that you’re lacking, can’t you take some of mine?” 

The look she throws him is scornful. “If that were  _ possible, _ don’t you think I would have already taken them back from you and left a long time ago—” 

OK, that one hurts in places he didn’t know he had. He tries not to think of why that might be (it comes from the same place that his carelessness does) and presses on. “No, I mean, not take them back completely. Can’t I just— channel some of my reiatsu into you, and you can direct it or something?”

She’s waving him off before the sentence is finished, but he persists. “Why not? Doesn’t look hard. Isn’t healing kido just you putting your hands on me and pouring reiatsu in anyway?”

“Ichigo, you can hardly control your reiatsu enough to mask it, let alone pour it into somebody else. I’m not about to let you anywhere near a medical procedure—” 

“—But you’re in  _ pain.” _

He doesn’t know why that slips out; it’s hardly an argument likely to sway her. Rukia’s face takes on an odd expression that he can’t quite interpret.

“...I mean, it’s just— you could  _ not  _ be, you know, and it’s my fault anyway—” 

In response, Rukia sits back down on the roof, and starts unbuttoning her shirt. 

“ _ RUKIA _ — WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOI—”

“Hush, you fool. Skin-on-skin contact is the first requirement for basic healing kido. Shut up and sit down next to me, if you want to help.” She slips the shirt off her injured shoulder, halfway down her arm, and Ichigo is kind of mesmerised by the sharp line her scapula makes against the skin of her back. Staring, he kneels awkwardly at an arm’s length from her side.

She sighs in annoyance. “Closer, idiot.” 

He shuffles nearer sheepishly. 

“Put your palm against the shoulder,” she instructs, and Ichigo tries to refocus; now that the moon is out in full, there’s more light around, and he can see the joint looks swollen and bruised. He winces in sympathy and wraps his palm around the area, fingers curving over the collarbone, almost touching her spine. 

“And now your other hand on top,” she tells him, and he complies; she burns beneath his touch, and he can’t tell whether it’s from the inflammation or if she always runs this hot. He should know, shouldn’t he? It isn’t his first time touching her skin. At least, he thinks so. It's strangely difficult to concentrate.

She puts a hand on top of his interlaced ones and breathes out. “Ok. Now try pushing your reiatsu into me. A— a little at a time, if you can, so I can control it….”

Trying to channel his reiatsu  _ out _ instead of restraining it  _ in  _ is a new experience; it takes him a few tries and a couple of singed hairs, but eventually he refines his energy into something acceptably similar to Rukia’s steady stream. He can feel it dissipating under her skin, being directed by Rukia to wherever they need to go. Somehow, this exchange seems much more… intimate than their usual closeness, and the thought is dangerously distracting; he tries to ignore the way that he’s hyper-aware of everything, the softness of her skin, the fragrance of her hair. 

(And wasn’t she using his shampoo? Why does it smell different on her compared to him? He’s smelled this shampoo on Yuzu before and he could  _ swear _ it smells nothing like the scent coming off Rukia right now— and oh, god,  _ focus,  _ Ichigo.)

After too long (and not long enough), Rukia heaves an unsteady sigh and takes her hand away from his. Ichigo takes a minute or two to react, blinking sluggishly and stretching the fingers that he now realises are cramping. How long had they been on the rooftop, curved together—? He looks back at her to ask the question, just as she looks towards him, and all of a sudden, they’re way, way too close; enough for him to see the reflection of the streetlights in her eyes, enough for his each of his breaths to stir her eyelashes. He’s seized by a reckless and foreign impulse, to lean in just a little bit more, and—

She hits him with her newly-healed arm. 

“OW—  _ what was that for?!” _

“For getting injured like a moron in the first place,” she sniffs, rotating her shoulders to check that they are in working order (they are. The rapidly-forming bruise on Ichigo’s midsection can attest to that). “What do I keep telling you? You have to hit them from the back, one clean slice—”

“Look, my way of fighting works just fine—” 

“Which is  _ clearly _ why we dropped onto this rooftop, tracking blood everywhere.”

“But did I  _ die? _ ” 

The look she gives him could wither entire trees in summer. Ichigo has to fight to keep the blush down.  

“.... Forget I said that. Let’s just get off this fucking roof,” he mutters, strapping his sword to his back and dusting his knees off. Rukia just snorts, her shirt already buttoned up and tucked neatly into her skirt. She makes an imperious gesture, and Ichigo kneels in front of her rather grudgingly; she hops onto his back, and he leaps off the rooftop, her arms snug around his neck. 

“You didn’t die,” she says, after a few minutes of silence and the night rushing by them. “You didn’t die, but you could have.” 

“Nah,” he tells her, easy now that they’re back on familiar ground. He can’t see her face, but her arms tighten around him. 

“Yes,” she insists, a well-worn edge of guilt in her tone. “Ichigo, you don’t understand, tonight, you really could have died—”

“Nah,” he repeats, stronger. He glances back at her, takes in a flash of milk-white skin, black hair tossed to disarray in the wind. “You were there. That’s what you do, right? Save my dumb ass from getting killed. That’s what you’ve always done.” 

She’s silent for so long after that that he thinks she’s fallen asleep; he alights on his windowsill, preparing to change his grip on her so he can carry her to the closet, but before he can do so she hops off his back, landing with a muted  _ thud _ on his bed. 

“I won’t always be, though,” she says, softer than his feather duvet, and it takes him a while to remember what they’d been talking about. 

“Oh, yeah? Only one thing to do, then,” he says, deliberately flippant; desperately trying to ignore the way that her last sentence sets his insides twisting. He won’t examine why that is, just as he won’t examine too closely the strange urge he had to lean in closer and the secret, reckless part of him that thinks it’s worth it to get injured just for the feel of her hands on his skin.

She looks at him skeptically. “And what might that be?”

The smile he wears for her then is rueful in the dark. 

“Teach me kido.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this, folks, is a fic that epitomises why I shouldn't write unless I have a very clear point to make. Some people are good at writing the everyday and mundane; finding the special meanings in a small ordinary gesture and making a simple, quiet scene between two people into something worth writing and reading about. I am not one of those people. I require a grand sweep of a narrative, a thematic anchor, some sort of common thread or point or feeling or //whatever// that I'm trying to convey through the fic. I just, I can't DO mindless fluff and I can't DO simple domestic if simple domestic is all there IS to the fic. make no mistake, i'm not insulting the simple domestic fics and small cutscene fics and what have you. In fact, I really respect people who can write stuff like that, because I'm /just so darn bad at it./
> 
> anyway, at first i was trying to shape this fic so i could end it with a sentence about how rukia's smile was far more electric than any kido running through his body (because the theme was electric, har har), but the fic wasn't cooperating, then i thought 'well hell if im gonna write about rukia's smile i should tie it back in with his 'i remember now why i wanted to save you so much' spiel because i wanted to explore that ANYWAY, but then i felt like I didn't want to '''''waste''''' a fic topic like that on what's basically a throwaway drabble, and THEN I was just trying to finish the fic and there was that WEIRD bit of sexual tension that came out of nowhere so i was like 'well i mean sexual tension is sort of electric and like ichigo is in that age range maybe i should make this fic explore that' but idk???? it just didn't happen that way, and THEN there was that weird bit of introspection on rukia's part when ichigo says 'that's what you do, save my dumb ass from dying' and i was like, 'this is Deep nd Meaningful bc in rukia's view that's the exact opposite of what she does bc kaien, right, oh i should expand upon that too' but like. by this stage i was just tired so i just ended it so abruptly. can you believe the original fic was just 'hey i think a lot about rukia using kido in early karakura and i wanna know how ichigo felt about this kido and was he ever curious about it and maybe he wanted to learn it???' except this fic managed to do NONE of the things i wanted it to do and. haha. hahahaha. but i didnt want to discard it because there are!!!! good phrases in here!!!! and god, kids, never get into writing as a hobby, it's a shitty shitty idea, don't do it. anyway. whatever. i hope u guys enjoy regardless, this was just my little behind-the-scenes rant :')


	32. The Little Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s the little things about her that throws him sometimes. Her inability to use juice boxes. Her complete disregard for his carefully constructed image. Her utter obliviousness to routine human world customs. 
> 
> (It’s the little things that make him fall in love.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The live action trailer literally killed me, folks. Kuchiki Rukia herself is waiting behind me to konso my ass as I write this.  
> (Aka: how CUTE was that high five in the live action trailer, holy shit. Bleach and ichiruki still have a stranglehold on my entire heart it seems)

“Did you see that?! That was pretty much perfect, yeah? High-five, Rukia!” 

 

“High— high five?” 

 

She looks bemused, maybe even a little concerned— that telltale furrow between her brows deepening as she tries to work out what sort of newfangled living world invention a  _ high-five _ could possibly be— and it’s times like this that Ichigo remembers her words, that she is at least ten times older than he is, and starts to believe her. 

 

In approximately a month of unbelievable occurrences, right after the other, Rukia’s age had perhaps been the most unbelievable of them all. She barely looks like the highschooler that she’s posing as, sometimes, let alone a hundred and fifty-something, but it’s unmistakable in moments like these when she’s staring blankly at his upheld palm, her own hands resolutely by her side. The high from his clean-cut victory (a first-ever textbook-standard hollow slaying; approach from behind, cleave straight through the skull, make sure to shatter the mask) falters a little, and even though he knows she’s being sincere, he  _ has _ to ask, he just has to: 

 

“Wait— are you serious? You don’t know what a high-five is?” 

 

She scowls at that and looks over his shoulder. “No, I do not know. Just like I did not know what a microwave was, or what calculus was, or what those stupid little cardboard cartons you call juiceboxes were—” 

 

“Ok, ok, I get it. Um. That’s fine, whatever. I’ll just— I’ll teach you.” 

 

He grabs one of her hands before his brain can quite catch up and be embarrassed about what he’s doing, and brings it up just above her shoulder. He uncurls her fingers and straightens her palm out; steps back to survey his handiwork. Rukia just looks up at him with those wide eyes of hers, and before she can take her hand back or ask if he’s lost his mind, Ichigo grins, quick and light, and smacks his palm into hers with a satisfying  _ clap. _ She flinches back from the impact, and braces for a second one that does not come. She looks at him quizzically. 

 

“That’s… it?” 

 

“Yeah. That’s a high-five.” 

 

“I see.” Rukia lowers her hands gingerly, staring at it as though it was a separate entity to her. “Is there a… purpose to it?” 

 

“It’s celebratory. You do it after someone’s achieved something, it’s a way of sharing the excitement of success.” 

 

“Humans are so odd.” 

 

He snorts. “Says the 150 year old dead lady.” 

 

He sheathes his sword and looks back her her expectantly, only to find her with her eyebrows knitted together, still staring at her palms. 

 

“I do not like this,” she mutters, and Ichigo realises then that what he said might have been, kind of, maybe, just a tiny bit offensive.

 

“Oh. Uh, shit. Listen, Rukia, you know that was a joke—” 

 

“No, no, not that. You think I care that I am 150 years old? By shinigami standards, I am barely into my adulthood. No, I do not like this….  _ not knowing.  _ There was nothing about any of this in any of the Shinigami manuals. No instructions to follow, no protocol to apply. I thought— I thought that I was prepared for this, that I was ready— more than ready. Only to find out I still lack so much—” 

 

Ichigo interrupts in exasperation. “Rukia, it’s just a high-five.” 

 

“Perhaps, but I have been here a month already and I am still not familiar with your customs—” 

 

Ichigo plants his sword down in the ground between them, sheath and all. “Shit. Okay. Listen. A month?  _ I’ve  _ only been shinigami for a month, Rukia. Today was the first time I managed to hit a hollow from behind, without any mistakes. A whole month, and today was the first time. You were beating my ass without even  _ looking _ literally just last week! You can’t learn everything in a goddamn month. Stop beating yourself up over a high-five, yeah?” 

 

She looks away from her hands, to the ground where his sword is planted, and a smile tugs the corner of her lips. “So you admit you lost that bout last week?” 

 

“I admit to  _ nothing,”  _ he says flatly. “But did  _ you _ just admit that despite being 150 you’re essentially barely legal? You tried to bribe me into getting plum wine for you last week!”

 

“How was I to know human customs were different?” she says archly. “And I admitted nothing!” 

 

“I’m  _ never _ deferring to you as a responsible adult ever again.” 

 

“As if you ever deferred to me in the first place.” 

 

“That clearly just goes to show how excellent my judgement is.” He swings back into his body, practiced by now; his joints line up with nary a creak and it only takes him a few seconds to orient himself again. Next to him, Rukia is back to appraising his every move. 

 

“You’ve gotten very good at this. Try to sync your head first next time, you get less nausea that way.” 

 

“Was that a compliment I heard, there?” He shakes his head to clear the last vestiges of dizziness, and accepts her hand up. “Might be the first in a month.” 

 

“Oh? Would that be cause for a high-five, then?” 

 

He barks out a surprised laugh. “S’pose, yeah. High five?” 

 

This is why he has such a hard time believing her age, he thinks; sometimes, Rukia lights up, with the kind of pure enjoyment you can only see in a child. He raises a hand, palm up, and matches her grin; Rukia leans forward on tiptoes, and lightly hits her hand to his. 

 

.

.

.

.

 

(Ichigo goes sprawling in soul form ten feet behind his body at the contact. Both of them look at Rukia’s outstretched hand, which still has her red glove on it.

 

“Are high-fives meant to do that?” Rukia asks. 

 

“No.” 

 

“Oh.” She pauses. “Oops.”)


End file.
